Before we knew it we were back in the company of Kim and
Ainslie, then Guy, Shelagh and Anna. We spent a last few nights in Vinnie,
organising the trip ahead and get our packs ready for the next bit.
With a distinct lack of bravery I said goodbye, Vinnie’s
minder Chester dropped us in town and Ainslie came down to the bus stop to say
goodbye (Kim had ‘flu).
We arrived in London in time to see the last of the
England/Australia rugby and then of course the All Blacks v France (enough said
about that).
It was nice to have some time with Reuben, but it turned
into a stressful time. Our passports were still with the Indian Embassy in
Birmingham and no matter how many phones calls we made, they held onto them day
after day. Eventually we realised we would miss our flight to Japan and that I
wouldn’t be able to do the talk at the conference (and would miss out on the
financial support for that part of the trip). It was a great disappointment as
I’d never been to Japan and was really looking forward to all the sushi!). We kept
an eye on Emirates flights in case we could get a later one, but the only ones
available were massive upgrades making the whole thing uneconomical.
Just as we’d given
up, cancelled our tickets and decided to rearrange the plans to go straight to
India when the passports turned up, after a bit of time back up in Cambridge,
we got word that the Visas/Passports were ready. I had another look at flights
and in some kind of semi-miracle, several flights in our price bracket had
become available. Nick took the bus to Birmingham on the Friday (Royal Mail
strike was on so we didn’t want to entrust them to that service) and we were on a
flight on Sunday. We left Reuben feeling poorly, he says he had ‘flu but I
suspect an intense case of World Cup Grief ;)
