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Old Blighty
We have a tradition in London. To state our arrival we force our way past the crack dealers and beggars at Oxford Circus and head into Tottenham Court Road to wash down a meal of scampi and chips with a warmish pint or two at a pub called Ye Old Surgeon.
We arrived last evening on an Air Berlin flight which took 50 minutes, followed by two hours of train and tube travel to reach the Moodie household in Ealing. The chap at the ticket office commented that it had obviously been some time since we were in the UK, the style of ten pound note handed over for the tube tickets now being obsolete.
Things have clearly changed, and I’m not sure I am ready for it. The tube ticket man was chatty and helpful, just as the immigration man at Stanstead airport was friendly and engaging. What has happened to the long queues and surly interrogations about the length of our stay and whether we are going to work illegally, sell drugs or become prostitutes? I could have been honest and listed unemployable on my immigration card, but instead I lied and described myself as a professional wrestler. The officer didn’t bat an eyelid.
Not everything has changed, fortunately. After being starved of television for a month, we feasted on news (but couldn’t find a full feed of George Bush’s final press conference) caught the last ten minutes of Coronation Street (no giving away the plot) and then, for a taste of home, the start of the live coverage of the last one day cricket match between New Zealand and the West Indies. We have been out of circulation a while as there are players (such as Guptill and Broom) in the New Zealand team we have never heard of.
But enough of this, scampi and chips await.