A Traveller's Tale with a Happy Ending

Okay, the gloves are off. I can now confirm that Flight Centre are in the running for the worst travel agent of the year award. I stopped short of naming them in a previous post but now it's official. Picture, if you will, arriving at Heathrow after 26 hours, inching your way through customs with hand luggage which seems to have increased in weight since leaving Melbourne, only to discover that your bus transfer, arranged and paid for in February with the above mentioned company, is not going to happen.

A hasty phone call confirms that they don't take bikes and have informed Infinity Holidays, Flight Centre's partners in crime, of this via email but have had no response. Neither have they received any money.

Now I have taken the precaution of invoking the protection of that patron saint of travellers, St Christopher, in the form of a medal purchased especially for me at the Vatican many years ago by my parents-in-law. Alright, I hear you all scoffing, and even the Catholic Church has demoted this worthy saint, but he has come through with flying colours, providing as he did the quite unexpected presence of a welcoming committee who have driven all the way from The Hague!

My extravagant and always surprising friends, Gayle and Lex, are waiting as I emerge from the scrutiny of British Border Security. I must appear somewhat like a stunned mullet as Gayle dashes from the waiting crowd with a delightful bunch of yellow roses, carnations, and liliums. I feel like Dame Nellie Melba making yet another comeback!

Gayle and Lex have not planned on spending a whole morning of their brief four day break creeping along the A5 (I think it's the A5) towards London with a deserted traveller, then entering the fray which is the daily state of play in central London. But they do, and deliver me to the door of my hotel with an invitation to join them for High Tea at the Dorchester in Park Lane at 5pm! By golly, perhaps I am Dame Nellie!

I have to tell you that, in spite of this excessively annoying drama with our old friend Jason and his inability to get the simplest thing right, and who has this very evening received a terse and I hope suitably cutting email from moi, I was feeling on top of the world. I must cautiously conclude that I might be a good traveller, having had quite a few hours of shut-eye en route.

My plan on this first day is to get a few things sorted out before hitting the sights. I'm determined to book my train to Inverness for Friday, go to the London Visitor Centre in Regent Street to cash in my e-ticket for a London Pass, and buy a mobile broadband stick for internet access. That was to be the focus of the morning and then make a start on my long list of things to see in London. I have not planned on there being the opportunity to inspect the roadside plantings along the A5 in quite such detail. By the time these three tasks are completed I have covered quite a bit of the Monopoly Board and am about to pass Go and collect High Tea at the Dorchester.

I arrive before 5pm and take photos of the fabulous floral display in the fore-court and can't resist a shot or two of the Mazarati and the red Rolls Royce with a number plate from the UAE or some exotic country of similar ilk. I loiter about waiting for Gayle and Lex to come and smuggle me into the lavish foyer. I'm thinking their glamorous presence will distract from the fact that I look like a back-packer and may be escorted out the door and thrown in a flower bed by one of the doormen in the British racing green tails and top hat. Then I spy Lex emerge from the door to peer around and so manage to slip in without incurring the wrath of the above mentioned.

Gayle, never one to say die, has brought along an assortment of items to transform me into a presentable Dorchester diner: a very nice top she's picked up on her travels today, a necklace of pearls in a charming shade of aubergine which compliments my shirt, and a pair of strapless shoes with a little heel. We adjourn to the ladies and Cinderella emerges to attend the ball.

Details of this indulgent evening to follow.