Our journey to England and back July 18 to Aug 19

It is two days since my wife Rosemary, son Chris and yours truly arrived in Sunny Sydney and were greeted after clearing customs with a stiff breeze with a wind chill factor of 8 deg Cel, mind you the Summer temp in London's Heath row airport was about 10 Cel.
The journey out and returning included a cabin baggage check, this resulted in having a small pair of scissors a nail file and for some odd reason a plastic jar of Rosemary's face cream siezed as dangerous items, However, strange as it may seem, steel knives and forks were available in the departure lounge eateries and tough plastic knives on board the plane.
The 14.5 hour nonstop journey to Abu Dhabi, followed by a 7 hour trip to Heath row was as boring as one might expect, then the prospects of a similar reverse journey was constantly on our minds during our visits to numerous relatives and friends during our stay in the UK. It would be doubtful that BA or Qantas would be more comfortable but our deal with Emirates saved us $3,600.00 by not travelling BA or Qantas. This saving allowed us to rent a brand new Avis; Peugeot automatic, with a left hand drive Frog made steering column on the right drivers side, meaning when you indicated left the wipers came on instead. The total cost of car and fuel amounted to approx $2,100 covering about 2,780 kilometers.
The visits to relatives and friends were quite amicable and most of all enjoyable.
A lot of special effort went into making our visits to the homes of our relatives and friends pleasing, great dinner parties, Barbies and Pub dinners too, followed by a last night party attended by about 25 relatives.
My niece Christine who is employed by the channel tunnel authority arranged for us to travel through the tunnel to Calais and on to Boulogne where we had a superb lunch in a French restaurant and then returned to Folkestone and on to Dover where we were staying with Christine.
Two days before returning to OZ we visited the Isle of Wight Via the car ferry, where we were driving on roads about ten feet wide in some rural areas.
Returning home by car after our arrival at Sydney was so sedate and the roads seemed so wide and traveling on the motorway (F3) was a picnic where the majority of drivers stay on the speed limit, not so in merry England where madness reigns and the speed limits are ignored on motorways, the worst mayhem is encountered on London's M25.
Our visit to the 'Bat and Ball' Pub at Hambledon in Hampshire where we had a wet lunch was enjoyable. The cricket pitch was set on a low plateau where any ball struck and not fielded would race away to the boundary. The ground was too wet for play so both teams settled in at the pub while we discussed the prospects of the ongoing test match. The site of the 'Bat and Ball' is where according to legend the first game of cricket took place, back a fair bit.
During the time in the UK hundreds of photo's were taken by Chris and Rosemary I may get some on the blog should Chris find time to deal with the matter, he is the Photo person and requests for pics must be made to him through this blog.
I would now like to thank those relatives and friends in the UK for their generosity and time spent looking after our needs, thanks everyone.
this will be all for now until we get back into the swing of things, back soon.VEST.

Ps forgot to mention: We visited the pub in Warborough near Oxford where the Midsomer Movie set is. We were also near Cromer in Norfolk where the plague of zillions of lady birds (Bugs USA)descended upon us, Quite unbelievable.
Eating Halal (Mussie Grub) on the plane,Etihad The Emirates Nat Airline. on the return journey I left Two uneaten PORK pies on the seat when leaving the plane in Sydney(A ghastly Infidel trick.