Rolling in to Richmond
Trip Start
Mar 29, 2006
1
5
232
Trip End
Feb 28, 2007
Richmond (London),
United Kingdom
Sunday, April 2, 2006
The taxi service was too efficient. We arrived at the airport at 2.15 am. Three hours to wait! Check-in was not yet open so we bought coffees at the one and only place that was open at one end of the departure level. It had free email facilities which we took advantage of to check our mail. About 4am the desks opened only for us to discover that there was a special Premier lounge where all business and first class could check their baggage. It had been open all the time!
I sat down in front of my check-in chick (they provided chairs and a concierge service) whilst she scanned my passport and ticket but briefly. The cases were carried to the scales for us, weighed and labeled. Our cabin baggage was once again given special clearance with strange coloured labels and we were directed through customs and into their waiting lounge. In this lounge were comfortable chairs, lots of free food and drink (including alcohol) and internet access. This was the only way to fly I decided. We dozed, we read the papers, we ate, we drank and we nearly missed the plane because it was to leave earlier than scheduled.
Our seats this time were at the front of the business section. [There was a couple sitting there already when we first entered They had misread their seat number and had been seated incorrectly all the way from Melbourne. With apologies they moved.] They were the same style seats as on the first leg but we now had lots of legroom...too much really. We had a breakfast of scrambled eggs served on a tray with a tablecloth. We could have had anything we liked with a snap of our fingers on the hostie light but we dozed, tried to watch movies and read papers. I saw most of Jim Oian in The Extra which was mildly amusing. I must have slept a fair bit because before we knew it it was only an hour to Bahrain. I had a very nice salmon bread roll, juice and coffee before we landed and am pleased to say that I drank no alcohol on that leg.[After all it was early morning and we were chasing the sun so when we arrived it was not much later than when we left.]
Approaching Bahrain in the morning sun all we could see was desert. Low hills of yellow sand receding into the distance just like in the movies of this part of the world. As we neared the runway, scattered along the edge of the water were scores of grey brick boxes...homes to many Bahrainians no doubt. Somewhere over the horizon was a modern, high rise city according to the pictures in the magazines on the aircraft but we never saw it.
We passed through into the transit lounge upon landing and once again pleasantly surprised at the care they take of business class passengers. Lots to eat and drink. Clean toilets. Nothing was too much trouble.[ I might add here that the cabin crew were all delightfully female in business class.] We bought some Scotch in the duty free area and boarded GF3 to Heathrow about an hour later. The seats were different again but it is a bigger aircraft...an A330 instead of an A340. They reclined at a greater angle but were much narrower.
I had a three course lunch although my choice of lasagna was sadly amiss. It was mostly pasta, very little if any meat and a sniff of cheese. However, it was served gracefully on real plates and a tablecloth...but no knives for which they apologised. We did have a surfeit of long pronged forks which I am sure I could have inflicted much damage on someone should I choose. A large entrée of fruit was provided initially and I consumed two full glasses of red wine which helped me sleep in spite of the noisy kids across the aisle. Mind you it was still only nine or ten o'clock in the morning our time. Just before we landed we had ice cream. At some time during the flight I picked up on a movie. Bits and pieces really. That's the trouble with movies on planes. You never know when they are about to start.[ It's like picking up a book, reading it from page 95 to 150 and then going back to page 1.]
Before we knew it [ Now there's a stupid expression!] we were circling over London. The cloud base was low and you could see it sitting over the British Isles like a blanket whilst the oceans surrounding the 'sceptred' Isle were free of cloud. It was much warmer than we thought as we exited the terminal in spite of my shorts and sandals. Passport control was a doddle and our cases were the first out on the carousel but we were picked out of the crowd to have our baggage checked by a young customs officer who fortunately only went through one case.
The taxi rank was empty so we hopped in the first on the rank. It was hot in that cab and it seemed to get hotter as we took ages to reach the Richmond flat and, as we discovered, at a huge cost. The equivalent of $110!!! No wonder there was no one at the rank at the airport. Our exchangers had told us it was about twenty pound. They are out of touch.
The exchange apartment in Kings Road, Richmond, was a short walk from Richmond Hill overlooking the Thames. The road was lined with large four storey homes with central entrance ways and semi circular drives. The four levels of these homes did, however, include the rooms in the attic and those in the basement. They looked very pricey. The block of 48 flats in which we were staying was arranged in a square of three levels around a well maintained garden. The original home on this corner block was demolished in the fifties. We had a corner flat of two bedrooms, lounge, kitchen and bathroom. It seemed small but that is probably because each room is separated by walls and doors, ie. no open plan. As a result it is very solid, soundproof and weather proof thanks to the double glazing and central heating.
Carrying our cases up to the first floor was a bit of a hassle from the street where we were dropped but we made it. We unpacked after which Anne made some scrambled eggs on toast with English baked beans which had been left for us in the frig and pantry. We watched some TV and I checked out some maps that had been left for us along with many other notes and leaflets for our information. I checked out the car...a Honda Civic...very nice...and we went to bed about 9 pm after turning off the central heating which was excessive for this apartment at this time of the year. I still have not worked out how the heating system works from the boiler in the kitchen to the radiators around the rooms.
