All Change At Victoria!

As you all know, Harry and I have travelled to our daughter's home town by coach, which meant changing for the last lap at Victoria Coach Station.

I was going to take a picture of the inside of the coach station, but thought better of it as I thought I might end up in jail! I read in a paper that someone had got into hot water with the Police recently for taking snaps in a shopping precinct. The reason being that the snapper could be a suspect terrorist or thought to be snapping for terrorist activities. I decided against taking a photo inside the station for that reason.

While waiting for the connecting coach we heard many messages on the loud speakers  warning us of pickpockets and drug dealers and the one we thought was funny, but realized it shouldn't be, was the warning that any luggage that was left unattended would be collected by the Police to be destroyed. In other words, blown up!

There were lots of ladies travelling on their own. Some of them had been visiting grandchildren as we had been and these ladies often got talking and asked us to look after their cases while they went to the toilet, which was down a flight of stairs.

We found ourselves being very vigilant while in that area. Watching our bags and avoiding pick pockets. We thought the coach station was very busy but quite a good way to travel. We also found it was quite cheap as we could go half price, as older folk, provided we didn't travel on Fridays or Saturdays.

However on the way back to Victoria, there was a giant gridlock on the motorway and the whole coach was one hour late and we all missed our connections. Luckily there were several later coaches going to where we live, but some people were not so lucky and didn't know what to do about getting back to their home towns.

Most of the older ladies were like me and didn't want to go on tube trains. Some felt claustrophobic and some couldn't manage escalators as well as their suitcase. In our case, we were afraid we should be hopelessly lost, being completely unfamiliar with the tube trains!

Fortunately for us, we were able to be squashed onto some spare seats on the next coach, but there was no guarantee that this would happen, until it did. Our first trip to our daughter's had gone according to plan with no hiccups. However on the second journey when we missed our connection, we heard of some real horror stories of people left stranded and the fact that the staff were not particularly helpful. One lady had come all the way from the North of England and had missed her connection due to delays and she was told there wouldn't be another one, so she was put back on a return journey to the North where she lived. The next day, she had to try again and was successful that time.

No guarantees with this method of travelling!

Once again, we are about to embark on our third journey from here to Victoria and then on to our daughter's home for the funeral this coming week. We will have one and a half hours after arriving to get our connecting coach. If we miss it that will be that! Only the one coach a day to that particular town.

However, the son of a friend of ours, has given me details of a London bus that goes from Victoria to the correct train station that will go overland to the town near where my daughter lives, avoiding the tube trains altogether. I can put this emergency plan into operation if we miss the connecting coach because of delays on the motorways. Lets hope we don't have to do this, as it is going to be a long day!

Back in one week! Unless we end up stranded in Victoria Coach Station for ever!

Miscellaneous Updates!

Today I was reading the latest post from Confessions of a Rotten Correspondent, who decided to do an update of all the recent tales she had told about people, that had no out come and had left people wondering........

I must admit there are things that people might be wondering about our lives, so I have copied her excellent idea.

Well the first update is that Japan is managing quite alright without my family! That is rather silly! I just wanted to put in an unusual picture. However, as it depicts a festival of some kind, thought I would give you an update on the May Day activities.

In my post about Morris dancing, here  I told how I'd made a pair of trousers for Sam in very bright colours for him to take part in a display. Some people outside this country didn't know what Morris dancing was, so we put in a link and if you still have difficulty with this, you will be able to look it up.

On the morning of the display, Kaiko was not in the mood to go, as I suppose being her day off she wanted to chill out instead. I think you have to be English to do this mad sort of thing, anyway! So Sam took the children with him early and it was arranged that Harry and I would follow in our own time. It was quite a journey to go, so we didn't want to be stranded there all day.

Harry & I were about to start out on the journey and suddenly received a phone call from Sam, asking if we could bring a spare pair of pants for Amber as she had sat on a dog poo which was on a wall that she was sitting on. Dirty but clever dog to do that on a wall, which makes me think it must have been a fox.

As an afterthought he said, "Oh and would you bring some sewing equipment as the trousers need repairing."

Well, I thought this last bit was a wind up about my sewing, but I did slip in a needle and thread just in case.

When we got there, I quickly changed Amber's trousers & gave her hands a good wash. Then I asked Sam about the trousers and the whole Morris dancing troupe were falling about laughing as  one of the back pockets had almost been forced off. Sam had stuffed it with wallet & phone & obviously had put too much in there. Nothing at all to do with my sewing! 

Anyway, it was good fun watching the dancers & all the locals seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.

You might be all wondering what the outcome is of our son in law, who had a brain tumour removed recently. Unfortunately, it is not a good one, as the test revealed that it was a secondary tumour from the malignant melanoma that he had removed from his shin twelve years earlier. It was a tiny mole that had started to bleed and irritate when he put his socks on.

He is going to have radio therapy but we have been warned that it can't be cured and will keep coming back and no one knows where it will strike next or how long it will take. So this has been a terrible shock.

I feel I need to warn everyone to check your moles out, as I'd hate any one else to have to go through the same thing as our family is right now. 

Sorry to leave on a rather sad note...........