It’s almost been a month since I departed my plane at Heathrow airport and I have been slack in keeping up correspondence with… well… anyone, really. It has been a fairly busy month, and a recount of this will understandably be quite long. Therefore, I’m splitting these posts up into a few parts. I will be having a fairly uninteresting week this week so it should give me an opportunity to bring this blog up to date.

I’m currently making my way through Bill Bryson’s Notes on a Small Island to bring me up to speed with the remarkably small island that is the UK. It is one of the funniest books I’ve read for a while and has thus inspired the title of this blog.

To start I could entertain you with the long and amusing story involving our baggage dilemmas and some hilarious mixups with the airline companies. However, this could take days and I will sum it up in two sentences. The night before we flew, we had to repack 5 suitcases and attempt to fit the important stuff in 2 suitcases. As a result, we now both officially hate British Airways and Qantas, and their stupid One World Alliance.

Once we were on the plane, our anger subsided to be replaced with joy at the fact that the plane was practically empty. This meant a much more comfortable 24 hour flight than I was expecting, even if the food and movies were terrible. I did, however, manage to confirm my love of top gear over the period of about 12 hours (something that has continued considering there’s a TV channel here that pretty much does Top Gear 24 hours a day. Thank you Dave).

Sydney was a nice and chilly 40 degrees when we left. However, due to lack of space in suitcases, we both managed to pile on most of the clothes we own and looked something like Michelen men. However, upon landing at Heathrow this seemed to be a rather intelligent idea. It was cold.

Thanks to Em’s parents, we then jumped in a car and headed north. As this is my first foray overseas, I was expecting something a little more… dramatic. Being on the other side of the world I expected it to look somehow different. I’m not really sure how, but I expected something to look not Australian. Aside from the signs

After a 32 or so hour drive, we arrived in Em’s hometown. Letchworth (full name Letchworth Garden City) is a beautiful little town in Hertfordshire (Pride and Prejudice country) that lays claim to having the first roundabout in the UK. Apart from that there’s not much else there. That’s not to say that it isn’t a lovely place. In fact, they do have a cracking cinema (cheap as chips. Slightly small though) and also lay claim to being the only place in the UK where you can find black squirrels. True story.

We didn’t last long that day. I believe I may have met some family and I’m sure that I made a great impression as a zombie but we hit bed fairly early. On that note, I love jet lag. You can blame anything on it. Feeling particularly cranky? Sorry, jet lag. Don’t want to go anywhere? Sorry, jet lag. There’s a ridiculous amount of housework? Sorry, jet lag. Unfortunately, Em stopped counting it as an excuse fairly early.

The few days that followed were interesting. On Friday night I was introduced to a crime against humanity. For this, I blame Em 100%. She decided that the best way to introduce me to the London Underground was during peak hour on Friday night at Kings Cross Station. Now, the train down was nice enough. The train was fairly full and had a lovely odour of stale sweat, but this was nothing, I repeat nothing, compared to the Tube. Firstly, they had closed the gates at Kings Cross tube station because the platforms were too congested. Once we eventually pushed our way in, Em made the comment that we would have to take the Northern Line. The deepest line that, in Em’s words, “is so dirty it turns your bogies black”. Charming. However, to get there we were herded like sheep through a series of long, low, small tunnels to a platform where I’m fairly sure if you put your arms out, three people would end up on the tracks. It was lovely. However, the night did end well as we saw a fairly good Victoria Wood musical, Talent (the review of which you can read at my other blog).

Saturday brought a baptism of fire. Em’s dad turned 60 the day we flew in and had his celebrations on the Saturday night in a way that any normal man would: A barn dance. Cue Luke being terrified at meeting almost the entire family and friends network… and then dosey doeing with them. However, it was actually a fun night. I met everyone, they all seemed lovely, I was dragged up to dance by one of Em’s mum and dad’s friends, etc etc. Fish and chips were consumed, along with a fair amount of alcohol. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Then again, I do have a fairly active imagination.

Saturday also saw Em and I frantically searching for a house in Twickenham. Out of the possible three it came down to two. Unfortunately, I desperately wanted one, and she desperately wanted another. Mine was a cute little cottage and hers was a cesspool that backed on to a factory (bias?). Of course, I won. We spent Sunday in a lovely lazy manner. First off we had a family pub lunch in a nearby town (the Brits do pub lunch well, I must say), then we headed to another pub to meet Em’s book club. In mentioning that, I must say that all of Em’s friends and family I’ve met have been rather lovely (A good thing considering some might by reading this… uh… hi…). They have all been welcoming and nice and haven’t mentioned the Ashes. I’m looking forward to spending more time with a lot of them, which is a good thing, I suppose.

I think that’s probably a nice place to end this post. That covers three four days in Britain, so by this rate I should be up to date in about a year. Luckily I have had an unexciting week or two since then.

Next Post: First day in London, antiques in Birmingham and moving our belongings to Twickenham amongst other things…