Wednesday Spetember 22nd
This turned out to be a great day in so many ways. It was really bright and sunny when we all woke up and the temperature for the day predicted to get to 25 in London which is where they were heading. Sue had taken the day off work and around 9am phoned the garage who said to bring me over straight away. Well it was at least a half hour drive away, so about 9.30 they set out in convoy. Mary followed Sue driving me carefully through many narrow lanes and up a few hills, ARRGH, I hate hills first thing in the morning.
When we finally got there the very nice man was quite stunned at my appearance. Well I am a little shabby on the outside, but beautiful on the inside and isn’t that what counts! While waiting for the boat Alan had rummaged through my glove box and found a bunch of receipts for previous work carried out on me and had discovered that I had had a new engine at 96,000 miles and I am on 121,000 now. This made him feel a lot more confident about my overall wellbeing. The mechanic was gobsmacked when Mary told him where they had just returned from taking me. He was visibly shocked, albeit amused. He made a comment along the lines that only kiwis would be so bold. Mary said well, we are back, we are here, we’ve done it! Patch up the brakes and off we’ll go again. So they left me in the hospital for the night.
So Sue drove us back home and we then got organised to go on the train to London. She phoned a friend to see if she could park at their house so we could go to an outlying overland station and travel in by Oyster Card. Sue wanted to go to a garden centre on the way so we called in there. It was absolutely huge and sold everything! People take coach trips to it as an outing. We had cut our lunch which we ate on the train and headed straight for the Royal Academy to look at the Sargent Art Exhibition; From the Sea. This was a small changing exhibition in its last week which Sue had wanted to get to before it closed.
After leaving here we went our separate ways. I had to get back to the Oxford Street branch of the HSCB to pick up the elusive pin number for my debit card. We finally got there after having walked past all the stunning Jewllery shops in Bond Street. I had to give my name and get into a paper queue which they said could be up to 15 minutes as I would need to see someone. My turn finally came and I was told that because I hadn’t picked my pin number up within two weeks of it arriving at the branch it had been shredded. They only keep them two weeks and then destroy them. This was news to me. Had I known this I could have made a new request online two weeks ago. The last time I had been in I had ordered it online but it had not arrived even after 10 working days. There seems to be a small window of opportunity for these things. I said that I had requested that one be posted to me in NZ and they could verify that this was posted on July 27th. I could have one posted to an address in the UK which I don’t have, but even if I chose a friend’s address the chances of it getting to the right place at the right time were remote. It would also actually change my address in the system and class me as a resident for withholding tax purposes, so not a smart move. At this point I politely said. “Thanks, I give up. I guess I will be able to use my account in 2012!” and stepped out in to Oxford St and felt like yelling some unmentionable word. Add that to the fact that when Alan checked the balance in the account at the bank, the spending in the last 24 hours hadn’t caught up with the account and it tells you about banking in the UK.
We had arranged to meet Sue and Phil outside the National Portrait Gallery and we went to Bella Italia for an early meal before going to the opera at Covent Garden. Here we had a very amusing and entertaining Italian waiter who made the dining experience a pleasure. We made sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to walk to Covent Garden and have a look around and spend time looking around the Opera House before the performance started at 7pm. This was Cossi Fan Tutti set in 2010 in modern dress. Of course if had all the trappings of the 21st century, cell phones, tattoos, laptops etc. It was hilarious and easy to follow with the sur titles displayed above. It has to be one of the best operas we have ever seen. It was long but so enjoyable that the time flew by.
We finally got back to Sevenoaks around midnight and it was still quite a warm balmy evening. However the weather is set to change soon.
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