I wake up slowly and suddenly realise it the first day of our holiday. This provides added impetus to get out of bed, head downstairs and make a cup of tea. Lots to do!
The first job is to move impossibly heavy luggage downstairs whilst wondering if we really did pack the kitchen sink. Then I recall that we are acting as 'alcohol mules' for the first leg of our journey and have carefully wrapped wine bottles in the bags. I always thought the idea was to bring back duty-free goodies from holiday, not take them with you. I'm hoping that my walking socks will provide sufficient cushioning when we abandon our luggage to the mercy of airport baggage handlers! (In the unlikely event that any baggage handlers are reading this, I'm sure, in truth, you always take great care with our bags).
Back to wet in the title. Opening the front door revealed a grey sky and a good amount of rain falling from it, so I got a bit damp loading our bags into car. As we drove through Lincoln it was clear it had been raining all night. First stop, the Doctor's surgery! Due to a prescription malfunction, Lynn had to politely persuade the staff to give her a new prescription on the spot whilst I went for a haircut, a summer haircut! Having been successful in our endeavours, next stop was the pharmacy to collect the drugs.
Jobs done, we arrived at Stephanie's house, reversed our car onto her drive and shifted our bags into her car. Ten minutes later, we were heading south bound for London Heathrow.
It was a very wet journey south, the spray from other vehicles and standing water making it a difficult journey at times. That said, with the aid of an app on Stephanie's iPhone, we took just short of three hours to get to the Premier Inn. I asked about early check in, but was told it might be possible for a payment of £10. Suddenly, it seemed like a good idea to have lunch and wait for an hour to pass.
Having checked into our hotel room on the dot of 1400, I tried to check in for our flight tomorrow. Not possible, says the website, your given name on your passport has to match your given name on the flight ticket. Simple you say! The ticket has our surname spelled correctly followed by a comma and a space then given name(s) and title, i.e. MR all run into one word. Qantas seem to be under the illusion that my given name is timothykevin!
Warning! Trying to phone Qantas customer services in UK is likely to cause a nervous breakdown and severe damage to your phone as you hurl it against the wall after listening to adverts for 10 minutes and not getting to speak to anyone. Staff at The Flight Centre, however, we far more helpful and managed to allay my fears about being denied boarding. Check in at the airport tomorrow is the advice given.
So, readers, you will either get a blog post written in Dubai in the next day or two, or this post will represent the shortest travel blog if have ever created. Wish me luck!
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