In Flight and Arrival
Wednesday, 29th November, 1989
he big day!! Chris Phillipps drove us to the airport in good time. We were on tenterhooks because of the troubles with medical certificates etc. but we had no real problems at the airport. No-one asked for letters from the Doctor, but trust Geoff!! He set off all the alarms going through the gate - lo and behold, he was carrying an illegal weapon! A butterfly knife which he picked up in Newcastle in a park but which turned out to be a prohibited import! We just thought it was a good sharp knife for peeling fruit which folded neatly and safely in the pocket. After all, Mac carried a little pocket knife. Apparently Geoff forgot it was in his pocket, he had not intended to carry it. He asked the Customs Officer to get rid of it for him, he hadn't known it was illegal. And so they let us through, Whew! Then the plane began to taxi and we were just beginning to feel excited when it had to turn around and go back. We had left someone behind and, since their luggage was on the plane, security said we had to either offload their bags or onload the passengers. Then because of all the extra taxiing we were delayed another twenty minutes to refuel! Altogether we were an hour late getting off.
he meals were OK - Geoff had his diabetic meals but there was generally too little carbohydrate. I think they are more geared to adult diabetics who need to lose weight. However, there was no problem on this first flight, originating in Sydney, getting extra rolls and diabetic drinks. He had a slight hypo before the evening meal but we dealt with it with jelly beans and a biscuit.
e arrived in Manila to find a transit desk manned by trainees who appeared to be illiterate, (computer illiterate, anyhow); it took ages to get our boarding passes for the flight to London. Luckily (?) we had a wait of about five hours before our eleven o'clock flight. We bought Geoff a sandwich and orange juices with our Filipino pesos and I bought a box made of a hinged cowrie shell for my collection. It cost sixty pesos and Geoff's sandwich cost 20 pesos. Not expensive, compared with snack bar food at Mascot! Waiting now for eleven p.m.
Friday, 30th November, 1989
t least I think it's Friday, we have been across a lot of time lines since we took off from Sydney. We stopped at Bangkok, an enormous airport - we got out to stretch our legs and only had time to walk to where the plane was reloading! We have stopped at Karachi and at Dubai, sand and little else visible, it was not yet dawn. But now we are a couple of hours out of Frankfurt - terrific views ( I have a window seat) of the snowy mountain ranges of Central Europe. We have been flying over Hungary and Czechoslovakia I think. I can almost believe that I am in Europe, or at least 30,000 feet over it. We don't think much of Jumbo jets though, there was more leg room in the DC 10 we took from Sydney to Manila, bad reputation and all. On this flight they have not had diabetic meals or diet drinks available - not until the last one anyway, which was a snack so small that Geoff had to go looking for extra carbohydrates - to find they had diabetic meals after all - just hadn't bothered to find out who to give them to.
n Frankfurt it is -5 deg. C. This is going to be a shock to the system, methinks. Oh well, it's all part of life's great tapestry - we have to feel as if we are in a foreign country after all! Boarding passengers now for London - one and a half hours away!
Thursday, 30th November, 1989
(Oh, well, I was wrong, it is still Thursday.)
e arrived at Gatwick to bright sun, cloudless blue skies and +3 degrees. Nice welcome! We took the Gatwick Express train to Victoria and thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The countryside and towns were so typically English and familiar from television. A trolley with snacks and drinks, alcoholic as well! was brought around the train, SRA please note! Only a half hour express ride and they think you can't survive without nourishment. I'd like to see them on an interurban to Lithgow with only cold water to sustain them.
uite some hassle getting the luggage from Victoria to Russell Square, changing at Green Park. We validated our visitor's travel cards at Victoria, so took the Tube. I was sweating by the time we reached our hotel in the Bloomsbury area. Too many clothes on! The hotel, Royal National, is huge, a conglomeration of several hotels. We are on the sixth floor - quite adequate triple room, private bathroom with large bathtub. We went out for a walk to locate ourselves - passed the British Museum Library and Russell Square Gardens. We decided to have dinner in the hotel coffee shop because of exhaustion and jetlag and came back to the room to be driven out a short time later by fire alarms screaming outside our room. I was proud of us. No panic, grabbed coats, passports and the key and straight down the fire stairs - (six flights) and out. It was either a false alarm or a drill - no sign of a fire. Came back, I had a hot bath, went to bed and slept like a log from 10.30 to 7 a.m.
