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.