Day 25 - The hound is back - over and out: that's all folks!!

Well the holiday is officially over!! The hound returns today and The G is off to collect him. This hound is the killer dog that lives with us. Readers will know that I do not do dogs. The G, however, is keen on this brown effort that is usually found cluttering up the living room.

The Killer Hound. His name is Johnny P and he is the apple of The G's eye. But not mine - harumph!!

We took a nap for 2 hours yesterday, setting the timer on the phone to ensure we limited ourselves to 2 hours. Then we went to bed at our normal time. I slept like a log and awoke at 04:00 and had no idea where I was!! It's definitely springtime here at home now: it was getting light by 0500.

This has been a good holiday and not just because we came in under budget!! Yes, really. The G is a good manager. No doubt about it. She also wins the prize for best souvenir as illustrated in the picture below.

A kilted egg cup

The TVR's battery is run down (the alarm system seems to drain it) even though I was trickle charging it from a solar powered source. Maybe there was no sun!!  Once The G is back with the hound I'll jump start it and take it for a drive. I can't try to start the Rover until the TVR is moved. That one is 50 years old so it'll probably start straight away. Beautiful weather so we went to the Post Office topless in the 370Z.

The TVR (left) has  flat battery. I expect the 50 year old Rover (right) to start on the button!!

It was, of course, great to see my parents and to find them in good form. In many ways they look little different than I remember them as a child but, of course, they are changed. But for a pair of octogenarians they are pretty damn fit. The Old Man's hearing troubles him and he is a little forgetful (but who isn't?) but my Mother has all her faculties. The funniest bit was looking around the churchyard in Bruntingthorpe. My Mother reflected on this as "selecting a suitable plot". My parents are not without a sense of humour!!

We enjoyed Scotland and we would recommend Rabbie's tours (http://www.rabbies.com). The whisky tour group was much more fun as a group than the islands tour but both were very good. We had good guides and a small tour is definitely the way to go. Because I am a reader of history I was interested in Scotland's history. I learned more than I knew previously about the intersections of Scotland's and England's historical trajectories. I had known, of course, that one intersection was Mary Queen of Scots and her son James I (of England) and VI (of Scotland). What I hadn't appreciated was the continuing challenges caused by religious differences (and intolerance). 

James II (who was, of course James VII of Scotland) was effectively hounded from the throne at least in part because of his Catholicism. But I had not appreciated the consequences (rather than the fact) of the Jacobite rebellions in the late 17^th and into the 18^th centuries. All this means I am now reading A History Of Scotland by Neil Oliver.

And that's it. If anyone has read this far then well done!! It's been a challenge writing this thing - much harder than I thought. But I hope you have enjoyed it!!

Home, sweet home. Our lake is still there with the sea in the background

Looking back at the entry for T minus 1 I see that I set some criteria or objectives for the holiday. Did I achieve them?

• Seeing my sister Ali: I did indeed see my sister Ali but she was pretty wrapped up in the then forthcoming nuptials and we did not have the opportunity to have a good chat. I am delighted, however, that she is visiting us in March 2015. I am looking forward to that.
• Being there for the referendum: Well, democratic wisdom decided “no” to independence but not by a margin that I think it large enough for there not be another referendum within a decade. Next time it will go “yes”.
• Seeing my Mother and Father: I said that “I have especially for my Father a version of Pee Wee Russell tearing into Dark Town Strutters’ Ball. He will be able to name every musician who plays on it, what year it was recorded and where!!” True to form I played him the Pee Wee Russell track. He did not let me down. “That, “ he said “ is Artie Shaw on clarinet”. Weirdest thing with my parents was probably arriving at Blenheim Palace and getting four seniors concessions!!
• Jermyn Street: I found New & Lingwood and made some sartorial investments including a pair of outrageous plaid trousers!! I did not look into Turnbull and Asser (who dress the Prince of Wales) because I was already spent up. I did visit Geo Trumper for shaving equipment.
• Dinner at Ee-usk in Oban: I said “I will take a scallop with a glass of something white” and this I did. We had the freshest of fresh seafood in Scotland. But better than Ee-usk, for me, was the chippie on Oban’s George Street when I had battered hake, chips and mushy peas.
• Whisky: Well I came back with three bottles (Kilchoman, Ardbeg and Talisker). So that must have been good!!
• Cheese: I failed to find Dorset Blue Vinney but I did not stint myself. I note that G. K. Chesterton is supposed to have said that “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese”. Indeed so.

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Day 24 - Endless night - or was it day?

There is little you can say about a flight between London Heathrow and Sydney. There are some who say that travel improves the mind. I say they are fools - they have probably travelled nowhere in any conveyance other than an armchair. I spent some years in the early part of the century as a globetrotter and with the frequent flyer points I was lucky to be upgraded to First Class on most occasions. Yes, it's really comfortable and you can sleep lying down. But you are no less knackered and jet-lagged at the end of the flight than you are when you have flown at the back of the bus. Though the food is better!!

Dinner on EK412 - looks like all those other airline meals you have ever had - tastes like them too!! You see the prawns at the top? The G didn't eat hers, When I asked why she said she never ate shellfish on planes. This worried me - here is a woman who has a lifetime of experience in catering and food preparation and she won't eat shellfish on a plane. Too late - I had eaten mine, fortunately I have lived to tell the tale!!

We were in Row 82!! Now you may say "hang on, isn't that sitting on the tailplane?" And, yes, it very nearly is but the last row is in fact 87. I have been in row 1 when I was doing the First Class thing!!

Various flight paraphernalia from the back of the bus. Fortunately I have Gold  frequent flyer status (due to the Emirates-Qantas tie-up) so we get in the lounge and we get the Fast Track thing through Immigration and Customs

I would say that Emirates is certainly my airline of choice. We would not now think of flying internationally with anyone else unless there were no choice. And the check-in chick at Heathrow was an absolute gem - just lovely and very helpful (the order of these qualities is important).

Emirates (www.emirates.com) are really good. Fly them if you can

We were flying Rex from Sydney to Moruya. Moruya (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moruya,_New_South_Wales) is the nearest town to us of any significance. The transfer was a pain and then we discovered that Rex (because it is a regional airline flying small planes) has a 15kg luggage limit (though it's 20kg if you're coming from an international flight (where the limit would have been 30kg)). We were hit for $38.50 excess baggage - a first for me; I have never paid excess baggage before. 

Then the check-in chick said that because the flight was full and the bags were "overweight" that they would be checked as standby. They might be off-loaded from the flight if there was a weight problem. If so they would come on the next available flight. It is small comfort to think that there are three flights a day on a weekday. The mathematician (or at least logician) reasoned that in theory these bags could never arrive if all the flights had a weight problem. As it happened they did arrive and our friend Robbo was there to greet us and take us home.

The terminal building at Moruya Inter-galactic Airport: The G third from left and Robbo on the right

A view of the aircraft that brought us and the terminal building

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