by Sunday. The morning after the night (and day) before. No full English breakfast this time. A bunch of us, including my brother, his wife, and most of the New Zealand contingent, met up at a café in the Barbican. Then it was back to the Sergeant’s Mess, where about ten of us, blokes mostly, spent two hours dismantling and re-mantling everything. My uncle B felt honoured to be selected as a tidier-upper; he likes to boast of his “special relationship” with my brother. (As a kid, my brother liked to spend time on their West Coast farm whenever he came to New Zealand. They moved back to South Canterbury in 1996.) My brother kindly gave B and me a bottle of whisky each for our readings the day before. When all the white frothiness had been cleared away, the mess looked much like a century-old tennis club room. The usual inhabitants of the mess, many of whom were at the wedding, form a very close-knit community.
I had a lazy Sunday afternoon watching the opening day of the French Open in my parents’ room. In the evening we went to Wetherspoons, where I had a curry and an apple crumble, and then walked to the newlyweds’ hotel room on the seventh floor of the Crowne Plaza. We didn’t stay long there.
Plymouth is an interesting city, particularly along the beautiful coastline, but the city centre was bombed to pieces in World War Two, and the collosal hideous-looking blocks that sprung up in the next two decades wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Communist-era Romania. Plymouth also appears to have a serious obesity problem. On that note, I’ve lost about three kilos (or half a stone) since my trip to the UK in April.
On Monday morning I had a full English once more, and then it was time to say goodbye to all the Kiwis, with the exception of B and my aunt J, who were coming to Romania with me. This was the end of their marathon trip that took in the US (where their son lives), Canada, and Holland (for the flowers). We took a taxi to the train station (they had far too much luggage to make walking an option) and boarded the 12:05 train to Paddington. We sat at opposite ends of Coach C. The journey to Paddington seemed to whizz by. We hung around Paddington station for some time; our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 9:50. We snapped up six reduced-to-clear sandwiches for £1 each from Boots, but then paid through the nose for coffees and muffins: three each of those cost more than I receive for a lesson. I got a call from a frustrated Mum, who had been stuck at Kings Cross for an hour and a half on a driverless train with no air conditioning. Mum and Dad were very tired and were extremely glad to eventually get back to St Ives.
Having loads of time up our sleeve helped to reduce stress. B and J were a little out of their comfort zone on the underground. My offers to help B with his suitcase mostly fell on deaf ears. We negotiated the underground, took the train to Luton, and then hopped on the shuttle bus to the airport where we ate our sandwiches and whiled away two more hours before boarding the plane. I realised that travelling with other people can be less stressful than travelling alone. Boarding was slow, as always with Wizz Air, but we were up and down in under three hours. It was after 3am by the time we exited the terminal building, and taxis were thin on the ground at that time of night, so I had to call one. B and J were staying in an apartment in the building next to mine. We followed the owner’s instructions involving keys and lifts and PIN codes, which my aunt had meticulously copied down, and (in what felt like a miracle after such a long day of travel) they gained access to their spacious apartment. Welcome to Romania!
