It's now Wednesday evening Oz time, and we have been home two and a half days. And this is my first few minutes on the computer. I have noted already that quite a few of you have emailed hoping we had a good journey home. Thank you for that. I will answer personally when I'm feeling a bit more on top of things.
It's good to be home, but we are so pleased we went. We had a ball.
Well, I'm sorry folks but your good wishes came to nought. Well, we did land safely, the flight was quick - half an hour early into Sydney - but arriving at 5 am meant that the airport staff who know what they are doing hadn't yet arrived for work. But more of that later.
I should have looked at my return ticket. We didn't come home via Singapore at all, rather Bangkok, which had its blessings (they are not as stringent with security as Singapore). It meant that whilst all the other passengers had to alight for 90 minutes, John and I were allowed to stay on the plane. Good thing, because we'd already had a horrendous transfer at Heathrow (yet again) with assistants who were very pleasant but completely untrained, no eagle lifter (unlike Sydney, Heathrow doesn't seem to have one) so they had to manually lift John. Also terminal four is designed without a lift to the tarmac from inside the security gate, so John couldn't stay in his own wheelchair.
Once on the flight, all proceeded well until two hours before reaching Sydney, when I (Margaret) had violent stomach pains and consequent vomiting which lasted 12 hours, and am only just coming right tonight. (Oddly enough, it was exactly the same as the bug that ruined my 60th birthday lunch last August at Manly). They had to cart me off the plane in a wheelchair. What a pretty sight we must have looked. But I didn't steal the limelight. There was a woman having a suspected heart attack on the flight. They called a quarantine officer in, checking I suppose that I didn't bring in SARS or equine flu (I was born on the horses' birthday after all), but she gave me the all clear.
Meanwhile, I was more concerned about John (being concerned about me, and fighting his own battles to get out of that damned airport chair). We (and I know that many of our wheelie friends have the same problem) cannot get it through their heads that sitting in chairs which don't suit, without a custom cushion, means skin problems and days or weeks in bed. Unlike our outward flight from Sydney, where all the equipment was available and the staff were superb, this time, they didn't even know what an eagle lifter was, let alone find it. And they nearly dropped John on the floor at the baggage carousel.
With all these disasters happening around us, we rang my sister and brother-in-law Kath and John and they came straight over and spent the rest of the day sorting us out (both car batteries were flat), bringing us essential items to keep us going, and visiting dad to let him know we were home. They were marvellous. We needed a new battery for the van. They had also kept our garden swept of leaves, tidied the garden and Kath even had the planter box at the front filled with pansies etc! So that was lovely.
But John's anxieties at the airport were justified. He has considerable skin problems and will need to spend a few days in bed, hopefully no more. We'll see.
So folks, this time next week, we will be back to work (me working on the ASCCA conference website), back to the computer club (both of us) and back to the same old, same old routine. But we are starting to laugh about the bad things - John keeps telling me he's planning to buy a motor home, and we'll need to lose half the front garden to accommodate it!
And the memories are just wonderful. John told his mate Ken, who he usually sees every Thursday that he has enough tales to tell for the next three months.
People will ask us what are the highlights, and we both say, meeting people who we've only known via the Internet to date. None disappointed us - quite the opposite. We were delighted to meet every one of them. We both met new cousins, some so distant that we'd have to say "cousins". Linda and Ange have become very special, and I got to know my cousin Ray and family much better too.
I will be putting up an album of all the people who made our trip so delightful, and will create a link from this blog. In the meantime, more photos will appear shortly. Keep looking for the next week or so at www.picasaweb.google.com/johnmoxon1
And apart from that? John would say our day in York. And I'd say stepping in the Cuckoo Inn at Hamptworth in Wiltshire where my Tuckers farmed and laboured, and going to the Cuckoo Festival at Downton with Linda and Peter. And seeing Bath.... and...
We've enjoyed sharing our travels with you, and receiving comments - you can still comment if you like! - and hope that some of you will consider doing the same whilst travelling.
Much love and warm wishes to you all.
Marg & John
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Heathrow Airport
Our very last day in the UK. We are currently at Terminal 4, Heathrow Airport, where seemingly like every other airport in the world, lots of building activity is underway. Terminal 4 is very antiquated, with no lift to the plane from beyond the gates at the departure lounge, so John had difficulties with his wheelchair (yet again). We cannot go through into the secure area (with all the tempting shops and eating areas) until John is willing to give up his own chair, so we are stuck in the outside area with few facilities until an hour before departure.
We caught a taxi from the hotel at 3.15 pm, booked in at 5pm (when Qantas staff arrived) and our plane doesn't leave till 10.15 pm. This is the down side of travelling. Airports are tense places - will they mess up the wheelchair, will our luggage be overweight, how do we while away the hours....
Fortunately we have not been charged excess baggage fees, and were allowed to take a bigger bag than the prescribed size onto the plane. So that's been a relief.
I attempted to log into open access wireless broadband at the airport - it works at railway stations - but was not successful at Terminal 4. I imagine Terminal 5 has it, seeing that it is brand new. Never mind, our 3 broadband still works.
We are not looking forward to the flight home. We travel via Singapore, and many long distance travellers take the opportunity for a couple of days stopover, but we do not want to risk another opportunity for either wheelchairs (John's power chair and the commode) being damaged by yet another baggage off-load.
John just said "An hour till the next battle". They promised him just 10 minutes in a manual chair without his cushion, but we figure that with us having to meet the customer service staff for a transfer into the manual chair at 8.30 pm and the plane not leaving until 10.15pm they must be kidding!
We will be looking at our mail when we get home, and shutting our eyes to the state of our front garden, but after that SLEEP for a couple of days. Then we hope to meet our new neighbour - a new baby boy for Carmel and Ray - and give dad a belated birthday treat.
When we get home, we will still be adding some albums to the photo gallery, so keep looking.
It's been great to know that so many of our friends and family have been looking at the blogs and the albums. It has certainly been a way of keeping my dad in touch with us. He was 94 this week. My sister Kath prints off the blog and takes it over to him in his nursing home.
We caught a taxi from the hotel at 3.15 pm, booked in at 5pm (when Qantas staff arrived) and our plane doesn't leave till 10.15 pm. This is the down side of travelling. Airports are tense places - will they mess up the wheelchair, will our luggage be overweight, how do we while away the hours....
Fortunately we have not been charged excess baggage fees, and were allowed to take a bigger bag than the prescribed size onto the plane. So that's been a relief.
I attempted to log into open access wireless broadband at the airport - it works at railway stations - but was not successful at Terminal 4. I imagine Terminal 5 has it, seeing that it is brand new. Never mind, our 3 broadband still works.
We are not looking forward to the flight home. We travel via Singapore, and many long distance travellers take the opportunity for a couple of days stopover, but we do not want to risk another opportunity for either wheelchairs (John's power chair and the commode) being damaged by yet another baggage off-load.
John just said "An hour till the next battle". They promised him just 10 minutes in a manual chair without his cushion, but we figure that with us having to meet the customer service staff for a transfer into the manual chair at 8.30 pm and the plane not leaving until 10.15pm they must be kidding!
We will be looking at our mail when we get home, and shutting our eyes to the state of our front garden, but after that SLEEP for a couple of days. Then we hope to meet our new neighbour - a new baby boy for Carmel and Ray - and give dad a belated birthday treat.
When we get home, we will still be adding some albums to the photo gallery, so keep looking.
It's been great to know that so many of our friends and family have been looking at the blogs and the albums. It has certainly been a way of keeping my dad in touch with us. He was 94 this week. My sister Kath prints off the blog and takes it over to him in his nursing home.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Demolishing the family Irish yarns
Today is our last full day in the UK, and we've spent it well, travelling by bus to Kew to the National Archives for some more family history research, and being treated to a pub dinner (very nice pub too) by a former girlfriend of one of John's sons when she was an English backpacker in Oz in 1990. She has fond memories of baked dinners at John's old place at Dundas, and has since learned to cook and like baked pumpkin.
John was looking for his gg grandfather George Fitzpatrick's record in the Irish Constabulary. He had to laugh, ruefully when he finally found it. On his great grandfather's death certificate in 1913, it stated that George was a superintendent of police. Far from it. He was a constable for 15 years, before he was dismissed!
So lesson number one. Never treat a death certificate as gospel!
I also found about 15 pages of my grandfather's World War 1 records. He was badly injured in France at the end of 1917 and spent the next 12 months in hospital in the Isle of Wight, and catching rheumatic fever whilst there. He didn't see active service again and died in April 1919.
This backed up my father's memory of going to visit him at the Isle of Wight in hospital as a small child. I thought he had confused the hospital with his final hospitalisation at Netley (the Military Hospital) before he died, but it seems not.
The quicker way to get to the National Archives - another modern and very efficient building - would have been by Tube, but we had to catch the bus instead, because they are wheelchair accessible. We've found London buses very easy to use.
We spent all day there, and could have spent much longer. We now have readers' tickets which last for three years, but I doubt we will have the chance to use them again.
We now have the worry of working out whether our bags will be overweight for the trip home. That's for another day. We don't have to check out of the hotel until 2 pm tomorrow, so that's a relief. Our flight is at 10 pm. Not looking forward to it.
John was looking for his gg grandfather George Fitzpatrick's record in the Irish Constabulary. He had to laugh, ruefully when he finally found it. On his great grandfather's death certificate in 1913, it stated that George was a superintendent of police. Far from it. He was a constable for 15 years, before he was dismissed!
So lesson number one. Never treat a death certificate as gospel!
I also found about 15 pages of my grandfather's World War 1 records. He was badly injured in France at the end of 1917 and spent the next 12 months in hospital in the Isle of Wight, and catching rheumatic fever whilst there. He didn't see active service again and died in April 1919.
This backed up my father's memory of going to visit him at the Isle of Wight in hospital as a small child. I thought he had confused the hospital with his final hospitalisation at Netley (the Military Hospital) before he died, but it seems not.
The quicker way to get to the National Archives - another modern and very efficient building - would have been by Tube, but we had to catch the bus instead, because they are wheelchair accessible. We've found London buses very easy to use.
We spent all day there, and could have spent much longer. We now have readers' tickets which last for three years, but I doubt we will have the chance to use them again.
We now have the worry of working out whether our bags will be overweight for the trip home. That's for another day. We don't have to check out of the hotel until 2 pm tomorrow, so that's a relief. Our flight is at 10 pm. Not looking forward to it.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Luxury at last
Yesterday, we delivered the motor home back to the depot near Derby, without drama and caught a train to London where they nearly left us on the train. A cleaner rescued us by phoning through to the customer service staff. The latter were most apologetic - they hadn't been informed by Derby station staff. However, this is the first problem we've had on the rail network - the InterCity trains are exceptional - customer service is far better than Sydney's urban link. However, Sydney is still better than the Tube. We can't catch any trains on the underground, because they have no ramps.
After arriving by taxi (30 pounds from St Pancras) at our hotel in Hammersmith and freshening up, we walked down to the Thames and across the Victorian (1889) Hammersmith Bridge. A beautiful bridge John A - you'd love it.
Then back to King Street Hammersmith for a British Beef Ale pie (delicious) at the pub next to the hotel and early to bed. (I was still looking for the ladder...)
This morning we waited in because Peter - bless his heart - drove up from Horsham with two of our bags. It would have been too difficult to take them up to Derby and back on the train. He stayed for a coffee, and then we caught a No 10 bus to Kensington Gardens, where John wanted to see the Albert Memorial.
Why the Albert Memorial? It is rather gross after all. The very worst of Victorian London taste. However, there is some folklore in John's family that his ancestor Joshua Middleton Moxon (1840-1894), a mason got into trouble for chipping off the nose of Albert and trying to cover it up. The story goes that he was advised to get lost or get into huge trouble with the Palace. So he emigrated to Australia with his wife Louisa and eldest son George. This was 1867. All the research we've done both about the family and about the building of the Albert Memorial suggests that this could have been true, but we've yet to see a written record. So who knows?
After posing for photos and taking some - especially of Albert's nose! - we wandered across Kensington Gardens to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain - very pleasant - and then had some lunch on the banks of the Serpentine in Hyde Park where surprise surprise there was a planter box full of Australian natives.
Then back to our hotel because there is a storm coming. We've been lucky enough to have had a week of sunshine from Southampton, Horsham and up north.
After arriving by taxi (30 pounds from St Pancras) at our hotel in Hammersmith and freshening up, we walked down to the Thames and across the Victorian (1889) Hammersmith Bridge. A beautiful bridge John A - you'd love it.
Then back to King Street Hammersmith for a British Beef Ale pie (delicious) at the pub next to the hotel and early to bed. (I was still looking for the ladder...)
This morning we waited in because Peter - bless his heart - drove up from Horsham with two of our bags. It would have been too difficult to take them up to Derby and back on the train. He stayed for a coffee, and then we caught a No 10 bus to Kensington Gardens, where John wanted to see the Albert Memorial.
Why the Albert Memorial? It is rather gross after all. The very worst of Victorian London taste. However, there is some folklore in John's family that his ancestor Joshua Middleton Moxon (1840-1894), a mason got into trouble for chipping off the nose of Albert and trying to cover it up. The story goes that he was advised to get lost or get into huge trouble with the Palace. So he emigrated to Australia with his wife Louisa and eldest son George. This was 1867. All the research we've done both about the family and about the building of the Albert Memorial suggests that this could have been true, but we've yet to see a written record. So who knows?
After posing for photos and taking some - especially of Albert's nose! - we wandered across Kensington Gardens to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain - very pleasant - and then had some lunch on the banks of the Serpentine in Hyde Park where surprise surprise there was a planter box full of Australian natives.
Then back to our hotel because there is a storm coming. We've been lucky enough to have had a week of sunshine from Southampton, Horsham and up north.
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