Day two: 1 May: Poole - waking Amy

This is a picture of Amy, my brother's daughter, and my favourite blonde niece. As you can see she looks a lot like me, except for the hair colour. Her mother invited me to stay with her brother Jamie, and his wife Frankie. We really like people called James in our family. It's my father's third name (after Edwin and Alfred), so my daughters Annie and Rosie both have partners called James. You would think that Jane's parents might have more imagination than to call one of their kids James as well, but they did. And his mother is called Jill. No imagination, as I said. But I digress.

Jane suggested I catch the bus from Heathrow to Bournemouth. Now if you have done your homework and read last year's blog, you would have noticed that I went to Bournemouth by mistake then, and knowing Jamie lives in Poole (Annie says it is pronounced Pu-ill) I wasn't going to be conned into going there by mistake again, so I checked, and sure enough - if you want to visit someone in Poole you have to go to Bournemouth. England is a funny place.

The bus to Bournemouth had a dunny (called WC) at the back. I spent most of the journey wanting to have a pee and wondering if I pulled the chain at an intersection and rushed out quickly, I would see my pee as we drove away. I was too scared to try, and anyway, I had my bag on my knee in case someone stole it. My bag, not my knee, silly.

Jane collected me much to my relief, as I had now traversed the world without error, being passed from husband to sister-in-law without a hitch. I shared a brief moment of pride with my alter ego as I got off the bus. Jane laughed at my large red suitcase but I explained that one needs a lot of shoes in different shades of red for an academic conference. When we got to Jamie and Frankie's, I went upstairs and woke Amy from her afternoon nap (poor lass had jetlag) but so as not to confuse her, I told her I was her Aunty Yoga. My sister Yoga is heaps older than I am and looks quite different as she has grey hair and round glasses. Amy is smart and knew it was me but couldn't quite get a grip on why I was there. She lives in Vancouver and I live in NZ so I guess it was a bit odd that we should meet in Surrey. She is my absolutely favourite blonde niece, as I said (if you had paid attention I wouldn't have needed to tell you twice).

I was pleased to have my Francoise me GPS with me, all loaded up with Western Europe maps, but the interior of their house wasn't on it, which was shame, as it was quite large and I needed a navigation system to find my way around. They had a lot of visitors as well, and it took me several hours to work out exactly which ones were my hosts and which were their children's friends etc. Even the dog had a guest around for dinner, though I think he just got canned food.

Last time I was supposed to visit them, Jamie killed the fatted lentil for me, but as I had stuffed up my itinerary (http://poulston.blogspot.com/2009/05/12-may-stroud-to-bournemouth.html

he had to put it back in the freezer for this year. Actually it was very good, and didn't taste a bit like my mother's ice-cream, which usually spends a year in the freezer before we eat it. He cooked a wonderful Indian meal, and I scoffed it happily, having been without a decent meal since somewhere over Croatia. I managed to stay up until 9.30 by watching slides on tv and sleeping on every fourth one, then waking in time to answer a question and then surreptitiously slipping into sleep again. I was very happy.

Next edition: Poole - learning to drive in England