We're Late, We're Late

19th April – Friday

Dubai Airport - waiting

Cold!

Thames House

 The Mall

We were all ready bright and early Thursday morning, waiting for Diane to take us to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time and then discovered that our flight was running about half an hour late due to bad weather in Melbourne. Consequently, we didn’t have much time to spare when we arrived in Sydney and kept our fingers crossed that our luggage made the transfer between terminals in time.

We were extremely pleased with our seats on the upper lever of the Qantas A380 – so pleased that there are now 30 economy seats behind the business and premium economy. It certainly made for much faster embarkation and disembarkation! We not only had two seats only beside the window, but also had a large locker between the seats and the window; this was amply big enough to hold the computer and jackets. I also discovered that if one is allergic to the food that is served to an economy passenger, then a premium economy meal will be forthcoming. Have to say that the food was pretty good, especially the dark chocolate mousse with a salty caramel fudge that someone tried to convince me I wouldn’t like!!! Whilst the pain au chocolat was also very delectable, the large chocolate drips on the fron of my shirt left a little to be desired.  Thank goodness for carrying a spare set of clothes in the cabin bag.  Unfortunately, the air conditioning was a little brisk and someone didn’t have a hat in his cabin bag, so had to improvise!

Our refuelling stop in Dubai was a bit of a disorganised chaos – Emirates really need to lift their game and announce flights, as well as providing more than one staff member to check nearly 500 passengers boarding a plane. After we were safely back on board, we had to wait for more passengers to arrive (obviously from another flight) and after they were on board we still couldn’t leave because a catering van had broken down under the plane. The captain said it would make too much noise if he ran over it, so we had to wait for some mechanics to actually fix it (no tow trucks available???). Consequently we were two hours late leaving Dubai with made us two hours late arriving at Heathrow, which made us arrive during rush hour and then have to circle madly for another half an hour before descending through the thick clouds and landing. It seems like at least another twenty international flights arrived at the same time and we all arrived at immigration control at the same time – another 45 minutes lost. Of course, by this time, the man who was supposed to meet us at 6.30 am and take us to the hotel had long departed. Once we found the appropriate counter to re-arrange the transfer, we had to wait and wait and wait, finally arriving at the Grosvenor Hotel shortly before noon.

Of course, all the rooms which were ready had already been allocated to people who arrived early and we were given the option of waiting until late in the afternoon for our room or paying for an upgrade. By this time, a shower and change of clothes was a fairly high priority, so we settled on the upgrade. A lovely young lady took us to our room via a couple of different lifts and long passages; a very nice room with a window at least six feet (or two metres in the new money) from the floor. Said nice lady offered to find out if something else with a view was available, so left the luggage and back down to the second floor and along at least a kilometre of corridor to a room overlooking Victoria Station and hearing the train announcements. So back along the corridors and up the various lifts to the previous room with very long curtains and a bit of sky to look at. The shower was very, very nice.

This afternoon, in an effort to stay awake, we walked to the Vauxhall Bridge and along the Thames. Even though it was cloudy and rather cool, it didn’t rain and the daffodils looked very pretty. Cat was quite happy to have a wander among the flowers and stretch his legs. Was passed Thames House (home of MI5, or is it MI6), but didn’t see James Bond. We had a long chat about police hats with a lady police officer outside Parliament, before walking along Whitehall past Downing Street and the Horse Guards with a large crowd of tourists all trying to have their photo taken at the same time. One of the horses did seem to be getting a little restless. We continued to Trafalgar Square, said hello to Nelson and then walked along the Mall to Buckingham Palace. The London Marathon on Sunday will finish in the Mall outside Clarence House, so there were plenty of flags flying and plenty of television crews setting up. The flowers in the parks looked very pretty and we even saw a squirrel. By this time it was more a slow stagger back to the hotel for one while the other went looking for a Marks and Spencer – someone who shall be nameless only packed one singlet and not the preferred eight (which was cut back to four).

Early to bed tonight, hopefully to sleep later than 2.00 am.