London Landing

Kenneth buckled up and ready to go to Gatwick

17 March 2011

So after a 13 hour flight we landed on London. Kenneth managed to catch some Zzzs despite the loud wailing-not from me-but from a baby in the front row.  I hadn't realized that the route would take us between Baghdad and Tehran, My eyes flicked back and forth between the two cities on the map and our plane which was on a course between those two cities. Kenneth turned to me and said very simply that we were too high for any missle to hit us. Phew!! Ok the rest of the flight was rather uneventful, other than my digging my fingers into Kenneth's flesh when we hit turbulence as well as  the incessant hacking from a passenger, which brought back memories of the movie Contagion for me.  I certainly did not want to be in Quarantine for the duration of my holiday. The pilot announced that the weather wasild between 6 and 7 degrees...haha! 

The look of fatigue and relief: I'm on terra firma in London!!

So we disembarked and spotted Australian author Chris Cheng in the immigration line.  I was kind of getting antsy as we approached the immigration officiers as one of them was in a foul mood and barking at some Chinese tourists who had no idea what he was talking about, pushing him further into the grumps. I crossed my fingers and hoped I didn't get him--it worked!


I got a very nice lady officer and babbled about having lived in london and where I lived etc, while Kenneth, I assume was interrogated in a gestapo-like manner by officer Grumps.  Here's a tip: babble on  non-stop about your life story and your immigration officer will wave you through. They'll be glad to be rid of you. Having survived immigration we headed out the doors to find out transport to Gatwick where we would catch our connecting flight to Bologna.

On the way to Gatwick

Our transport was waiting for us and swiftly escorted us to the car park, but I had to take a potty break first as my bladder was unaccustomed to the cold weather. Then we were off and away to Gatwick as the jet black sky slowly faded into a dull grey. Our driver was an affable man from Iraq, and  Kenneth peppered him with questions...I'm thankful he didn't probe too far because if he had been a secret operative or assassin Ken and I might  still be in England right now, in a ditch somewhere, serving our purpose as human fertilizer for the surrounding countryside.


While I was just thrilled to see the English country cows and horses and sheep. I hadn't been back to England since 1992-too long- and I was thrilled to be back.