Kathmandu, 1975
25 May 2014 Languishing in Hove
24 May 2014: Hovering in Hove
I didn't get an upgrade on this leg but slept quite well. Watched the Railway Man and more of Sherlock and entirely forgot to update my presentation for the conference, so I had to do this really this morning as it was due today. Phew.
It was a bit nasty driving down here. It took an hour to collect the car, and Mr Budget felt so bad about the queues and delays he upgraded my booked tiny little car for 100 GBP for the entire week, to a nice Audi with bells and whistles. Once I figured out how to turn off the bells and whistles (the noise was irritating) I headed for Hove, accompanied by my good friend Francoise the GPS. Unfortunately I had forgotten to see how the demister etc works, so once on the M25, which was very busy, when it started raining, the car fogged up inside and I couldn't see anything. I slowed down, which provoked lots of flashing lights from those behind, so I wended my way to to the slow lane and started playing with the knobs and buttons. The radio worked well. Eventually the road both in front and behind became apparent again, but it was a bit unpleasant in the meantime. When I arrived at Hove I was jubilant - the sea appeared at the end of the road and I started singing joyfully about how clever I was, turned left, then left again (I knew where the place was), and eventually found a park and arrived at what looked like their door. As I wasn't sure which button to press, I pressed all four, and held them down while I said 'hello Sally, it's me, I am here.' A man who was not Sally came to the door and said Sally did not live there. I asked if he had seen a Frenchman around (Jacques) and he looked puzzled and said no. I didn't believe him, but he asked me to show him the address I was looking for, which I did, on my trusty red device. By the way, my device is still not communicating with the outside world, as I haven't worked out how to buy a data bundle. The nice man pointed out that all the doors in Hove look the same, and I was in the quite the wrong street and at quite the wrong door. Sniff. He was right, I was wrong, not surprisingly.
Several streets later I found another very similar looking door (he was right, they are all the same) with many more buttons, but this one had a 10 on it, so I pressed that and found Sally! She answers to ten. I attach
evidence of our next few hours.
23 May 2014: Auckland to Buxton sans hat
I climbed aboard the silver bird on high last night in Auckland and oh joy was upgraded to premium economy, which mean I could stretch my not very long legs right to the back of the seat in front. I did not sit next to a large person, nor a smelly one, and watched The Book Thief (cried only twice) and a Sherlock episode. I can't believe someone will want to know this, but apparently the world is so large that somewhere in the world someone will, so I am telling you now. Is it you?
I attach a photo of my adventure. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of my seat, so here is one of a forest at Raglan instead, just next to Mr and Mrs Blue's house, aka Lynne and Mike. Mike can play the guitar. He is very famous in Raglan, and Lynne can sing and play the flute. She is also famous. If you know them say hello from me. Oh - that was exciting - I just got the photo to move to the left of the page, but every time I write something it slips down a little. Bother.
Oh - just worked out how to write below a line. You have to put the line in first.
I am in the Koru lounge at LAX, which is travel-speak for The American airport on the west coast of the US of A that everyone has to go through to get anywhere useful. Life aboard the plane was pleasant enough, but on arrival at the US of A we were greeted by A Cathay Pacific girl wearing an Air NZ uniform, which was very confusing. I asked her what to do next, as usually we are just told what to do in the US of A, but this time we were all left to our own devices (all puns intended). It was frightening. There were two queues everywhere I looked, and lots of fierce looking people of all weird shapes and sizes. I joined one queue, then another, the changed my mind, and eventually found myself getting my pisspot stamped and welcomed to the US of A. Too late I thought, but pressed on to have my laptop and shoes inspected, my body photographed (they were not satisfied with my finger and thumb prints, and eye photos), and then my money pouch inspected. I admit, I do look a little like a spy/national threat/sweet little old lady. A nice couple of Maori girls led the way. They were easy to follow as there are not a lot of Maoris here, and they had ample bottoms, but not unattractively so.
It is raining in London apparently. This is not good news, and I have to collect a very small car (providing I can provide all the right paperwork, which is always a worry), plug in Francoise my French GPS, and navigate to Sally and Jacques Hilton at Hove. Wish me luck. More later.
There aren't many people here - I had better go. Something is not right I fear.....
USA trip day one: 22 January Auckland to San Diego
My trip to San Diego is to visit the AUM friends that I mentioned in my Christmas letter last year. Some of them live in America so those are the ones I am visiting, but some of the Australians will be here too. A nice feature of Americans is that they have a very accepting nature and don't seem to mind hosting Australians. I flew Air New Zealand as I was away so much last year, this trip puts me in silver status which means a free upgrade (see my blog about when I got a free upgrade) and a visit to the Koru lounge with free chocolate fish. I hope my hair doesn't turn silver.
The plane was full. A bunch (note use of local lingo) of Rotary exchange students were in front and a 36 strong barber shop group (I thought they were usually quartets - my how things have changed) were to my right, all under 18 and apparently on their first trip out of town. One young island boy was clutching a large oak and metal crucifix, about 15 inches high. I guess it gave him some comfort to know that he was being looked after while away from his whanau. I watched a movie about Zuckerberg or whatever his name is and felt much better afterwards, as I now know I could not have invented Facebook as I am far too nice and as it happens, also not smart enough. I sat in seat 65B, right at the back, because I booked my seat only 4 weeks ago, straight after the Barber shop 36tet and the Rotarians, so I had to listen to the conversations of the people hanging out at the back of the plane all night, and I can tell you now that people don't talk about very interesting things while they are getting exercise on a plane. I guess they are too busy flexing and extending their calves. The best thing about the flight was that I got plenty of Lindauer with my evening meal (see photo), but the coffee was awful. I must write and tell Mr Air New Zealand to get some decent coffee. I didn't really get much sleep but it was okay.
Since my last visit to LAX they have smartened things up a bit. Perhaps they heard back that I have been avoiding America because the airport staff were so rude on my last visit. One of the barber shop boys took a photo and was hustled out the back and told that if he took another one they would confiscate his camera and send him back to NZ. Of course that made him instantly famous with the rest of his party but I did mention to them they should take the airport staff seriously because they can be quite mean. However, this time they weren't. They took my photo (my PR manager said it would be okay so long as they didn't sell it) and finger prints and I sailed through without having to tell them why I was visiting America or what my real job was, which was lucky, because I might have got one of them wrong.
If you want to go to San Diego by train from LAX, here's what you do. You ask someone what to do like this: 'How do I get to San Diego by train?. Don't be put off by the answer, which is 'There ain't no train to San Diego'. This just means your question has to be asked again. So try this: 'How do I get to the train station from here, so I can catch a train to San Diego?' The answer will be this: 'Go outside and look for a Flyaway bus - probably green. Catch it to Union Street Station - that's where the train to San Diego leaves from'. So that's what I did. The bus runs every half hour and costs $7. You don't pay the driver, but pay at the other end. When I got to the other end, the driver gave me a red ticket and told me to give it to the man in the ticket box, who would sell me a ticket, which could be used to get my bags back, which would be held as a kind of ransom. He told everyone this on his microphone because it applied to everyone - not just me.
Before I left New Zealand I had gone through my coin collection and gathered up a bunch (local lingo again) of American coins, which I felt should be returned to their rightful home. After all, what right do we have to hoard other people's property? However, the ticket box man was not terribly impressed when I emptied out a wallet full of quarters, but in due course he correctly identified 28 of them as American property, and gave me a ticket in exchange for them, which turned out to be the same value as my luggage, as I was able to exchange the ticket for my luggage. Americans love exchange games. Personally I think I got the better deal.
I was sorry my luggage had bad wheels, as I had to walk around the station, then underground to the ticket office. My red bag was in an Auckland bag hospital having its wheels looked at after its trip to the UK last year (which quite tired it out), so I had a boring blue bag from the luggage shop. Everything is very big here, including the walk at the station. At the ticket office I was asked for $21 and made the decision not to pay in coins which was probably quite wise. The woman asked me for ID and I made another good decision, which was not to lecture her about the freedom to walk around without ID as it probably wasn't her idea, but I did make a diary not talk to Obama about it some time. He really needs to attend to some of this stuff. She looked at my ID and gasped, then looked back at me. By this time I had noted that I was the only person in LA with grey hair, and was beginning to wonder if I looked a bit odd to everyone else. Hopefully my leopard skin harem pants helped me blend in. She said 'you're not a senior, you're under 62', and I confirmed that she was correct, but pointed out that I had not claimed to be anything I wasn't. Sort of. Then she charged me another $4 which I think was for being underage, but for all I know, it was for being a foreigner, or was perhaps a tax for having grey hair. My silver status was imminent.
Union Street Station is very beautiful - looks like a sort of 1930s art deco design, and well worth a visit which is good, as I had plenty of time to admire it, having arrived at the same time as a train was leaving for San Diego, but without me. I bought a postcard for my mother and enjoyed the station. In due course a lady with an important looking hat and driving a sort of indoor train thing arrived, and called for passengers for San Diego, so I fronted up, alongside a young man also heading in the same direction. The nice lady told him to wait in line, as she was just collecting people with disabilities, and then picked up my suitcase and told me to get up on to a seat. Grey hair was making a comeback. She drove four of us (and our luggage) to the platform, which was deserted, being far too dangerous a place for people to loiter on while waiting for trains. The others were old and infirm, just like me. Then (this gets better) she got my suitcase and told me not to go upstairs (double decker trains like in Sydney) but to follow her, found me a seat marked 'reserved for people with disabilities' and said 'sit there', and then she put my suitcase away. I tried to look disabled but wasn't sure what to do, so I just smiled happily at her. She put a green card in the slot above my seat. I this this meant I could work in America now.
The train took two hours, mostly going through city, with a bit of deserty looking country just north of San Diego. Sit on the right if you want to look at the sea and don't mind the sun, and get off at Solana Beach if you want to visit my AUM friends.
Day eleven: 10 May: London and thence home
Showering in my 'hotel' (I do not use the word advisedly) was entertaining, as I had no towel, and in all the excitement of seeing Anna and Kieran I had forgotten to buy one. Okay, and I'm too mean to spend the money. Katy has since pointed out that I slunk through Richmond without visiting her, so now I am in trouble with all John's daughters. I will make it up on my next visit, by which time there will be more grandchildren to admire. But I digress. I was about to have a shower. The shower cubicle I selected was in a room with a toilet, rather than in a room with another shower, because I was keen to shower alone. I placed my toileteries on the toilet seat, there not being anywhere else suitable to put them, and ventured inside the shower, carefully stepping over some old soap left by someone else. I remained calm in the face of adversity, telling myself that a shower was a clean place, so it didn't matter if someone dirty had been in before me. It was slightly reassuring to think that at least no-one would have peed (shouldn't there be another 'e'?) in the shower, as the toilet was so alarmingly handy. I had to hold the shower head in my hand, as when it sat in its holster the water aimed directly at the wall in such a way I couldn't seem to get between the wall and the water. So I held it with one hand and with the other attempted to reach the soaps and shampoos on the toilet seat and generally make myself squeaky clean. And when it was all over I dried myself on my sarong. I have had better cleansing experiences than this.
Day ten: 9 May: Horsley Park to London
I had spent at least three hours on the internet looking for a nice cheap B&B in London and eventually decided it was a waste of my precious time, so put a deposit on a place with wifi in Bayswater. The wifi was quite an issue, as heaps of places didn’t have it, and some had it for a ridiculous add on price, while others had never even heard of it. Anyway, I consoled myself, Bayswater is a nice area, so it would be worth paying $100 for. Ha bloody ha.
So I sent them a message to say I was in town, and if they had nothing better to do, I would visit them and return Kieran’s book, The Spiritual Tourist, a wonderful dissertation on various spiritual persons and their astounding feats and personal habits. Then I went and looked for the shoe shop in Kensington High Street where I bought some lovely black boots when I was 22 and lived here, but which finally fell apart at the Hamilton field days a few years back (the boots that is, though I was somewhat under the weather as well). Amazingly it was still there, but selling Mr Clark’s shoes. I also found a marvellous good food shop of several storeys, and was caught photographing the cheese room – apparently the market is so good the owners don’t want anyone to find out about it, and don’t let us take photos. So I can't show it to you. I promised not to. While strolling around Kensington I suddenly remembered my text to Anna, opened my phone, and lo there was a response from her saying to hurry around and say hello. So I scampered back to the B&B to get the book and asked Francoise to take me to Richmond, which she did. I think she likes Richmond.
By the time I had quaffed a few glasses of wine (Kieran had to go for more supplies), talked to Jeanette, gossiped, mused and attempted to interpret various aspects of life with Anna and Kieran, I realised it was my bedtime, and I had to go 'home'. Kieran wanted to send me in a taxi, but I was brave and took the bus and underground, and in due course Francoise and I found ourselves back at the B&B. I had been clever of course, and asked Francoise to make a note of the location, so we had no trouble finding it again. I have my moments.
I quite like London. I lived there for 18 months in my youth, and was looking forward to seeing other places I would recognise, such as Hammersmith station, St Martin in the Fields (I was in the choir), Charing Cross Station, a number of pubs, and the National Gallery. So even though my ‘hotel’ was cheap and nasty, I was a happy camper and fell once again into a deep and meaningful sleep.
Tomorrow: St Pancras, Park Lane and the gallery, all on ten quid