Tuesday 15 March 2016

On travelling - part two

So - now we have to collect DD from Heathrow, having travelled back from NZ.  Easy-peasy, no?

First, decide which day she's actually coming back on.  For a month we have thought 29th January, a Friday.  But then when she still appears to be doing things in NZ on Thursday, her "last full day in NZ", I start to think that logistically she cannot then arrive at Heathrow on Friday morning.  So, after much hunting around, I find that the travel document actually says "+1 day" in very small writing, in red which doesn't show up very well in b/w printing, so we decide that actually she won't be back till Saturday our time.

Before that we have spent a considerable amount of time measuring cars trying to find out whether anything we have access to can actually carry back a bike bag and a bike box, plus various other bags, and three people.  There is much consideration given as to how much the bike box can be cut down.

So.  Now we're at Saturday morning.  We need to leave at 08.30.  I've gone to the loo when OH opens door and says, "Er, actually it's 9.00 now."  After several "Oh, shit"s (not literally), I suggest we better get on with it then.

Rapid washing, dressing, eating breakfasts.  We ditch the idea of taking bacon sarnies for sustenance on the way back.  I look at the planetracker site and say, "her plane is 20 minutes away".  Bear in mind that from Bristol to Heathrow is around 90 minutes.  By the time we're ready to leave the planetracker says her plane is "taxi-ing to the terminal".

Right, well let's get going.  We'll probably have to make excuses about traffic.  After all, she has got to retrieve all the baggage.

We're about two-thirds of the way there when DD rings to say she's waiting by the Costa outlet.  Tell her to go and get a coffee as we might be a while yet.  We still have to make a fuel/loo stop at Reading.

Eventually we arrive and park in the car park.  Make sure we remember where we have parked.  Find daughter. 

Okay, now on to the easy bit.  Take all baggage upstairs.  Cut bike box down to fit in car (this is not the quickest of jobs).  I shall have to sit in what's left of the back seat with a box hard up against me and things on my lap/round my feet.  I can handle that.

Go to pay for parking ticket.  Nearly on our way home now, no? 

Well no, not exactly.  Look at phone and say, "we've got six minutes before we go over the first, and cheapest, tariff".  That should be alright.  OH stuffs ticket into slot.  Nothing happens.  Display still reads "insert ticket".  I look at machine more closely.  There is a big yellow slot in centre of machine where you should insert ticket, but no, OH has put it into another slot.  It was reluctant to take it so he pushed it in harder.  That slot says "insert notes".  Ticket is only just visible, but no apparent way to get it out again.

Push button that says "help".  Nothing happens.  Press it again.  Still nothing.  Does this surprise me?  No.

"Okay, so now we've lost the ticket."  Tariff says lost ticket will cost you £75.  "So we've lost the ticket, we can't get out the car park or it will cost us £75."

Hunt in handbag.  Find multi-tool which has a nail file on it with a serrated surface.  After multiple attempts manage to tease the ticket out of the slot.  No, we do not put it into the correct slot on that machine - after all, that machine is still asking for help, which hasn't been responded to.

Move over to another machine.  Put ticket in.  Attempt to pay money.  By now, of course, it's the next higher price.  Haven't got that much cash on me.  Attempt to pay by debit card.  Machine refuses to acknowledge my debit card.  

OH says he'll run back to car as there's more cash in glove pocket.  DD says "how long is this taking.  I need to go to the toilet."  Pay cash.  Aah, at last, we have managed to pay to leave the car park.  We have ticket to leave.  It says "you have 15 minutes to leave the car park otherwise you have to pay full whack".

Go back to car.  DD is nowhere in sight.  Pace up and down looking for her.  Absolutely no sign.  Minutes tick past.  OH gets increasingly wound up.  Still no sign. 

I go back to ticket machines and find three (Eastern European) LHR employees emptying the machines.  Assume 'poor little old me, don't understand these things, my daughter has disappeared and we've only got 15 minutes to exit the premises and time's nearly up' attitude and ask for their help.  They say "no problem.  Just say that Marc has said we're okay and they'll let you out".  They then take registration number.

Finally DD turns up, we head towards outbound barrier, expecting to be quizzed, and the guy behind the checkout desk just lifts the barrier.  He must have recognised the licence plate.  Thanks Marc!

No wonder we don't want to travel abroad!



4 comments:

  1. This only just arrived in Feedly!

    I have a dark and awful secret. When waiting for my daughter to arrive home from 9 months in Australia, I was really worried that I wouldn't recognise her. I had terribly bad facial recognition 20 years ago.

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  2. And thank you for reading this.

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  3. I wouldn't have been too pleased with DD at that stage. :(

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