So, as I mentioned in a previous blog, the other half has gone to the US to help out with son+new wife+twins. To get to Heathrow (LHR) involves a local train ride, then a bus link to the airport. The flight's at 1600: we have plenty of time to make it. What can possibly go wrong?
Firstly, she's up at six and buzzing. Packing was done the day before, but she's moving around the bedroom and making it impossible for me to sleep. Argh. Get up anyway, although I know I'll pay for it later.
At the station there seems to be a large number of people milling around. Fortunately we pre-bought our tickets two days earlier so get straight onto the busy platform. It is well gone 0900: the rush hour has finished, what's happening? A woman who turns out to be the duty manager tells us that all the signals on our line have gone funny, showing red, amber, green in almost any possible combination. Perhaps even blue. Trains are being talked from signal to signal.
Ours turns up 25 minutes late, then goes straight to Reading without the scheduled stops. Just before Reading, the conductor checks all tickets and as I put mine away, I notice the date is wrong. While she has the correct dates on hers, mine (a day return) has the date we bought the tickets. So off to Excess Fares to explain. Fortunately, I'm allowed to buy a correct ticket without penalty and told I can reclaim back the bad one.
On to the bus, which does its thing and gets us to Terminal 3 in good time to permit us to eat lunch before she submits herself to the security theatre as specified. So we go to the bag check-in to get rid of the hold luggage.
"Passport, please."
"Here you are."
"But... this is his passport, not yours."
D'oh! Now the old blue UK passports had your name on the front but these modern Euro-compatible thingies don't. She has picked up mine instead of hers. I deliberately decided not to take mine, in case there were complications, but if I had done we would have discovered the mistake before we left...
The girl at the check-in does some sums and says that she can put off checking in until 1500. The alternative is to move to a (much) later flight. Can I get home and back again with the right passport? Not by public transport, that's for certain. Then I have a brainwave. Taxi!
The 'concierge' who runs the departures floor at Virgin Atlantic has a friend who might be able to help but it will cost £150. That's... about a pound a mile and, under the circumstances, might just work. Ten minutes and this Asian guy turns up in a (Private Hire) Galaxy and we're off down the motorway.
I have to stop somewhere to get the cash out of a hole-in-the-wall and I spend about 30 seconds in the house before we're off again. The car keeps speeding up and slowing down again, and I'm wondering why. Eventually the driver tells me it's Eid (of course) and he got dragged out of a celebratory feast with his family to do this rush job. He keeps falling asleep on the motorway because he's full of food. I say nothing and keep my eyes on the road.
I get back at 1430, surprising everybody and hand over the correct passport. We check her in, dump the hold bag and then she tells me... the flight's been delayed for three hours. D'oh! So time for me to have a much-delayed lunch and to take things a little less frantically.
Finally she's off through the gates and I get the bus back to Reading. The air-conditioning works so hard that my right side (by the window) is freezing. At terminal 5 one of the other passengers complains so the driver turns the air-con off and opens one of the roof-lights to let fresh air in. As he pulls away it begins to rain...
Back at the departure station I go and get a form to reclaim the bad tickets. While I fill it in a queue forms and I have to wait 15 minutes to hand the form in. Then the ticket clerk has to go out and get my return ticket from the bin in the barrier gate. It all works in the end, and I actually manage to catch the last bus of the day (1840) to save having to climb back up the hill to the house.
I'm home and hyper from having drunk far too much coffee. My partnere eventually gets to NY and exits the terminal at midnight local - 0500 here.
What a day!
Penny
PS Got the labelling machine out. I don't care what regulations I'm breaking, I'm going to put our initials on the back of our passports.
Comments
I think there's a movie in there somewhere
Glad things worked out. We discovered that taking a cab from the hotel in London to Heathrow is cheaper than taking a cab to Paddington and catching the Heathrow Express. Plus, we were let off at the door to the terminal.
Portia
Portia
Or,
At least a couple of Scenes.
I am sure, not so fun living it as watching it in a movie would be.
Fun
the account of your day sounds like so much FUN glad I missed out (lol) but it all worked out , now it is time to get a good nights sleep. When is the return trip ? how long is the new mommy going to need help ?
HUGS RICHIE2
Situation and Some Other Opportunities Explained Previously
Penny's life has gotten more complicated for a while. She explains it here: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/51666/real-life-changes-gear
Passport woes
Yep, been there done that...
I was heading off to Moscow round about 1993 and arrived at LHR sans passport. I realized that I'd left it at home just as I drove into the Long Term Car Park.
Thankfully, like you I was in plenty of time so I headed round the M25, down the M3, retrieved missing passport and got back to the car park and checked in. Phew.
Now, whenever I leave home, my passport is always in the same place. Lefthand front trouser pocket. If it isn't there then something is wrong.
As to identifying your passports, how about different coloured covers. Sure, at most border crossings you have to take them out but at least you have a way of identifying them.
Glad that it all turned out right for you.
Nightmare
This is the stuff of my nightmares. Seriously. I don't even travel that much and I have dreams like this. Maybe that's why I don't travel much?
I must have been traumatized by my earlier travels. Either that, or I'm just prone to high anxiety!
That Was Somehow Reassuring !
Thanks for that account of experiences with public transport especially with trains and planes... I found it reassuring, because I thought until now that this sort of thing only happened to me !
Mind you, you did not end up stranded somewhere foreign for days without passport or money...
I'm so glad I am now considered "too old" to be allowed to dash about all over the place. I seem to have developed a wierd ability to adversly affect trains - I only have to get on one when immediately everythimg starts to break down. A train in front breaks down and we cannot pass it so have to sit and wait. There are COWS on the line. The restaurant has run out of water so there is no tea or coffee. My tickets are for the travel from town A to town B but not for this company's trains and the bloke wants me to pay again ! .... It is summer so how come there is snow on the lines ?
My negative magic does not work on aircraft, but my luggage is really brilliant at getting lost. We usually got back toether, eventually.
Briar
Been there, done that
I haven't ended up anywhere foreign, thank goodness, but I have that kind of relationship with trains as well.
The stories are too many to relate, and I doubt that I could collate them into a book (though that might be fun!). Let's just highlight: Getting dumped at Derby at 0430 and having to sleep in an outside waiting room with frost on the inside of the windows; Standing on a Doncaster-King's Cross train in the end vestibule of a carriage with failed electrics: my (volunteered) job was to reset the circuit-breaker every minute or so as it popped out, thus preventing the carriage from overheating; Breaking down between Waterloo and Woking and being pushed by another 8-car train to Woking - of course, the 16 carriages won't fit on the 12-carriage length platform, hilarity ensues; watching a bloke get off a non-stop train as it passed through Reading...
Boring journeys? What are they?
Penny
Doh!
And yet you people still wonder why Americans all have cars! ;-)
They know they can survive
Certainly proves the old saying that...
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong"
What can possibly go wrong?
Never ever tempt the gremlins, goblins and trolls by saying, "What can possibly go wrong?". They will do their utmost to destroy your day and sanity in an hour flat.
Glad they cut you some slack.
DJ
Murphy
I did not think you had Murphy anywhere in your name ;)
But at least your spouse arrived in NY. At least I hope so?
Take care
Yours, Leontine