Homecoming

So.  Coming home for Christmas this year has been awfully exciting as, having found that the average Christmas has become a little mundane, Frenchie and I decided to spice things up a little by asking my sister to organise a Wedding of Epically Complicated Proportions to overshadow the birth of Jesus in our, and some 63 other people's minds. 

In the last three days,this has required following the Schedule of Colour Coded Uber Control, which has organised every 15 minutes of my life into manageable, bullet pointed chunks. 

'Get on the Plane', however, wasn't in the Schedule, which only started at 7am this morning when I touched down in Heathrow, but I was lucky enough to be babysat by eight other teachers, and as we all know, teachers like giving clear instructions like, 'Emma, pick up your passport', 'Emma, don't leave your passport there' and 'Emma, point to where your passport is right now.'  As well as this, they also got me in a taxi, to the airport, through check, security and duty free, to the bar, to the gate and on the plane. 

Whilst they were all busy herding me in the right direction with calm, outspread arms, I was busy having the following conversations:

Me: hello, Lovely Check-In Lady - I am getting married on Saturday in England. 

Lovely Check-In Lady: oh, congratulations. 

Me: I'm really keen not to be tired and jet lagged. I hear they have flat beds in business and first class. Any chance of an upgrade?

LCIL: I'm afraid not. 

Me: oh.  I really am getting married. I'm not making it up just for an upgrade. 

LCIL: congratulations. Try talking to the stewards when you get on the plane. 

Me: got it. What about the captain?

LCIL: the captain is married. 

Me: me too, but if there's an upgrade in it for me...

When I did finally talk to the stewards on the plane, I was delighted that they moved me to a row all on my own and promised champagne later. When they did bring me champagne, though, I had already realised that the plane was very empty and I could very easily have upgraded myself by just moving to an empty row, and that champagne was in fact available from their trolley for everyone. Hmph. He sure fooled me!

After a stopover at Doha, and the last two Godfathers (what a disappointment the third one is), the Schedule came into action and whilst wandering, slightly star-struck and overwhelmed through London to renew my passport, I noticed the following things that I probably took for granted when I was living in the UK:

- Paddington Bear is awesome. I've always known this, but it's worth reiterating. 

- the Heathrow Express is really very fast. What a delight!

- nobody in England likes to open their tills to give you change. 

- photo booths for passport photos make you look terrible and are very annoying. 

- people in the UK are unused to you starting a conversation, 'hello, how are you?  Gosh, that's a nice hat/scarf/pair of shoes', or 'morning!  This is lovely smelling coffee!  How are you?', but when you do start conversations like this, people are generally very nice to you and everyone's day is a little bit better. 

- 5 degrees is not as cold as I was worrying it would be, as long as the wind's not blowing. 

- M&S sandwiches are the BOMB. I love them. 

- travel is expensive. Gosh. 

- tannoy announcers have British accents!

Shockingly, I noticed this whilst everything was going according to the colour coded plan, which is spooky because things don't often go according to my plans. I don't want to jinx it, but the only loss so far has been a pair of wooden poles intended for signposts for wedding decorations which were clingfilm wrapped in Vietnam and made it all the way to Victoria before I noticed I had put them down somewhere and not picked them up again.  However, these were miraculously recovered by the lovely staff at the Victoria Pret-à-Manger, which, when combined with the friendliest service I've had in a long time from Kay at the passport office, got me feeling very Christmassy indeed. 

To keep up these festive spirits, and because I had four hours to kill before picking up my passport and  because London was looking particularly sunny and beautiful, I took myself on a little tour of my old haunts and visited some old friends:

Tea with Ole Liz at Buckers...

A tiptoe past my secret garden - a little spot I used to walk past and peak in at on my lunch break...

Some biscuits with St James at his palace...

A quick chat with my old boss at the Avenue (I used to stand there and take people's coats!)...

Then I got bored taking photos and met Laura for lunch instead and we ate sushi!  Because even when you're not in Asia, sushi is a GOOD idea.