Leaving

30 May 2022

I awoke lateish (for me) and said farewell to Tom, who had to go to work in the city. 

More writing. 

Paula and Max seeing us off

Paula and Max took the boys on a quick excursion. Harry wanted to go to Harrods (in the mistaken belief that it was a toy shop). He had meant Hamley’s, to which Paula duly took him. They returned with more loot and we sat in the gathering long pre-flight limbo, waiting for the lift that would take us to Heathrow.

The cab arrived and we said our final set of farewells, to the boys’ cousin Max and his mother Paula, who is the hidden hero of this whole saga. Without her support and hospitality, the trip would not have gotten off the ground. So, a million thanks to you Paula.

Hoping for a smooth trip through baggage, customs, duty free etc., we arrived at Heathrow. Well, that did not quite happen. After queueing for about 40 minutes, we came to the head of the queue only to be told that we hadn’t downloaded and registered a particular Australian government app (my bad) and we had to do that and go back to the start of the queue. After filling in the forms we snuck back into line (well done Dan) and got through. (It turns out we didn’t need the app to get into Australia after all.) So let’s go to the bar after some duty free shopping? Not with that queue.

No more smiles to give?

It soon became clear that we were crotchety. Maybe there’s an inevitable moment in any group trip where everybody gets the shits with each other. Well, I think we’d reached that point. I don’t think it was personal; it was more structurally inevitable. After the interminable waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting, we finally boarded our A380 to take us to Dubai. A seven hour flight. It should be easy, right?

Dubai

Wrong. Squeezed together, our manspreading legs constantly bumping each other’s, unable to stretch, my knees were screaming in pain the whole trip. Landing in Dubai was such a relief. A three hour layover we could freshen up, get coffee and stretch.

Panic stations. 

Harry asked me for his boarding pass which he swore he had given to me. I swore he hadn’t. He couldn’t find it in his possessions. I couldn’t find it in mine. What to do? After more crotchety to and fro I had one more look in the bag that contained the duty-free I had bought. Oops (my bad again). There it was.

knackered but on the last leg.
Harry is sleeping btw

To get to our terminal, we needed to take the internal airport train, which took about 10 minutes. How big is this place? Upon boarding the next A380, we realised it was half empty so we could spread out to different seats, which was a big relief to all of us. 

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful and we landed at 5:30 am on Wednesday 1 June. We got through customs fairly smoothly, the boys had to face the sniffer dogs whereas I just wandered through seemingly being adjudged as the non-threatening silly old man that I have become.

I was greeted by Eris, the boys’ mother and we waited 5 minutes for them to come through. I gave them each a hug and she whisked them away. And that was that.

Now where was I?