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12 weeks on the cut


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I mentioned in another discussion forum that I would post some more of our adventures of our 12 week canal holiday in 2004. I might add that we loved it so much we have now bought a boat and will spend 3 to 4 months each year cruising even though it means joining the alien line at Heathrow. Whatever happened to the Commonwealth?

 

We kept a comprehensive diary of our trip so perhaps I will add some pages regularly depending on the response, although we leave on 30 March for our 2005 cruise so I may not get a lot done between now and then.

 

This was mainly written by my wife Lynn.

 

Thursday-Friday 29-30 April

 

Diversion to Dubai (or aren’t we glad we packed an extra pair of undies in the carry-on)

 

We should have known it was going to be that sort of day when we arrived at Brisbane airport and they had run out of cordoning for the check-in queue. The computers were down and all flights were being called one by one for immediate boarding. We made our hurried goodbyes and then were off, feeling at last it was all real.

 

Sydney was elegant as usual as we flew over the harbour and the bridge. Our bags were ticketed all the way through so no worries there. We filled in time with our duty free shopping and threw dietary caution to the wind and bought a bottle of Scotch but no sign of my beloved Cardhu, nectar of the gods that it is. I treated myself to some Chanel as usual. Bill must have sensed a future need and stocked up on cigarettes. We asked but they couldn’t change our seating so we could sit together to the side - we were in the central group of four. But hey, we had our World Traveller Plus, so the seats would be good at least. We boarded to find we had the bulkhead but some people asked for these seats don’t they? They’ll be good. Great, Bill has the aisle and there’s a spare seat between me and the chap to the right. At least there isn’t a child there, (not that I don’t like children, but next to me on a 25 hour trip is something else). The minute we were airborne, the wife of the chap next to me materialised from the rear of the plane with four year old James and his sister in tow, saying James’s television was not working and she was upgrading him. Was I cynical to think it was all a set-up? James, however was a good kid and only kicked me in the ribs a few times as I tried to doze off on the Sydney to Singapore leg of the journey.

 

In Singapore we managed to while away the time exploring the shops and discovering that our duty free shopping might have been better left until now. We re-boarded and were off to London (or so we thought.). James and his dad had been relegated to the rear of the plane and replaced by a couple our age, Cliff and Jane, returning to the UK from holidays in Oz.

 

We were woken earlier than expected from our reverie by breakfast followed by an announcement from the Captain that one of our engines had lost “a lot of fuel” (found out later 5 tons) during the night and had to be shut down. We were currently flying on three engines and asking Dubai if they’d let us land. Bless Dubai for their generosity. After the obligatory four fire trucks, complete with flashing red lights, met us well out on the tarmac and checked us out, we were slowly (very slowly), bussed to the terminal to learn a new lesson in patience. About this time, our “World Traveller Plus” status became worthless.

 

British Airways had one lass in evidence on the ground and I would not have been in her shoes for quids. Suffice it to say she managed to find hotels for the first and business class passengers and food for the now starving (but previously three hourly force fed) hoi polloi. To her great credit she managed to get us and our new best friends, Cliff and Jane, on an Emirates flight to Birmingham, thus saving us a five hour bus trip from London to Wolverhampton. Courtesy of Bill’s clever politeness, BA sent us from Birmingham to Wolverhampton in a warm, comfortable hire car, just us and our hand luggage, with our own personal driver. The operative phrase here is hand luggage, because you see, our luggage wais still somewhere in Dubai.

 

Friday 30 April

 

Wolverhampton

 

Our hotel was amazing, a time warp, a rabbit warren of corridors of regency stripe wallpaper and dado rails, with mismatched levels corrected by two-step stairs and sudden turns in mid corridor. I half expected to round a corner to see Basil in a simian crouch, with his arms clasped above his head (you have to have seen the episode of Fawlty Towers to know what I mean.). I couldn’t walk the corridor to our room without smiling at the thought.

 

The restaurant had its own Manuel. Again, I kept waiting for him to say “que” when ever I asked a question and half expecting the Major to walk into the dining room. The room itself was a time capsule of the ubiquitous regency stripe and chintz curtains with strange low period chairs that put ones mid chest level with the table top, a bit like “Foo was here” cartoons of our youth. All of this kept smiles never far from our lips.

 

The downside of this amusement was the fact that the hotel, our room in particular, had a street frontage and across the road were two night clubs from which rowdy youths emerged from midnight to dawn. I had to suppress the medico and parent in me that kept worrying about the squeals of the girls and the alcohol damaged neurons of the boys. I just repeated the words of our girls - “let it go mum, let it go”.

 

We explored downtown Wolverhampton, a university town with a fixation about football but couldn’t wait to get away next morning. Found a Sainsbury’s and purchased our basic provisions. I was amused by a young black male check-out guy who, with a Cockney accent, called me “Darlin” five times during our brief interaction.

 

We phoned the boatyard to let them know we had arrived. I remember it vividly, standing in the entrance to Woolworths, out of the wind, the strange look on Bill's face as he clutched his cigarette pocket instinctively and said “and what does that mean for us?”, “Oh shit” I thought quietly to myself. The boat was “not quite finished” and was expected to take another “one to two days”. A phone call to the airport verified our luggage was on its way from Dubai and expected to arrive after lunch from whence it would be couriered to us wherever we were. On the strength of this promise we set off in our cab for Brewood were we arrived without luggage, standing up in the clothes we set out in three days ago (thankfully with a change of “smalls”), and without our boat to go to. We wanted an adventure but this was stretching it a little. William Abbey, the boatyard owner, was most apologetic about the boat not being ready and said they had been working frantically, 16 hours a day, to have it ready. He offered to put us up in a B&B or on a spare boat in the yard. We opted for nb Sir Ladinas.

 

More to come.

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