Thursday, July 05, 2007

Walk on by

Today

Well, we successfully collected my great-niece from Gatwick. This, despite the evidence of increased security. Also, despite the fact that Tess marched through arrivals with such ferocious confidence that I didn't think it could possibly be her. I was expecting an uncertain 14-year old to peer anxiously from the door, scanning the waiting faces.

Paul, however, was quicker off the mark than I; spotted her and dashed off to get her.
With only one contretemps when I though I'd lost my car park ticket (in a safe place, it was), we got out smoothly and off to Brighton.

I talked to Tess about it. "Well", she said "Mum said be a confident traveller, so I was!"

In My Day

Back in 1989, Lizzie decided she wanted to go to Canada and visit relatives. She needed a passport and so we duly filled in the forms and off they went. It was close to summertime so there was the usual backlog. The days passed but there was no sign of the passport.

So, Liz, aged 16, got the train to the nearest passport office in Newport, S Wales and stood in the queue and wouldn't move till they gave her her passport. She used a mixture of flattening verbiage, desperation and teenage courage to win through.

She had such a splendid time in Canada that she went back again 3 years later to stay for 6 months.

Anyway, let's hope Tess is equally confident on the Routes Nationales - we could do with some help.