Crazy London

Well I arrived in London to a miserable, grey, cold, wet horrible day, what a return, it is always grey when I get back to the UK, I know that I cannot ever return to live here, I love being British and I love the country but after living in the warm tropics I don't like living like an Eskimo, wrapping up and avoiding the wind. I went to my hotel and went straight to bed as I didn't sleep for 2 minutes on the trans-Atlantic flight, I managed a few hours sleep and then went to eat and watched a bit of TV before I went back to bed only 8 hours later so I took a wonderful Valium to get me away, I lasted 5 hours before waking up at 4am, not great but better than staring at the TV all night long, I went into the office next morning and was given all my documents for the embassy and then traveled into London on the train, it was quaint as i don't often get on the train these days and i was able to have a look round at the crazy London building scene. Everywhere you looked there were things being built everywhere, this is a hangover of the silly money that was circulating around the globe. I got the tube to Oxford Circus just off Regents Street, the big shopping area, it was heaving with millions of shoppers all spending like crazy. The Embassy was small and empty, i just got there before they closed and i was given two forms to fill in, with incredible questions,

1, What is the shape of your nose
2, What is the shape of your chin
3, What is the shape of your forehead
4, Pay £98 for the document



I also had to provide fingerprints from my thumbs and photos from the front and side, like a convict, I was then told i should come back 2 days later to pick up my document. When i went back the document was given to me and looked more like a passport, a multi-entry work permit. I was also told that the trip had been delayed 6 days so i was able to go and visit my sister and brothers in good old chesterfield, I had my big bag with me and i had to cross London by tube and lug this 20Kg bag up and down stairs onto trains and up escalators across roads and finally to the rail station which has changed completely since i last used it. it is now called St Pancras International as the cross channel trains now travel all the way to Paris and Brussels, i was lost as it was huge, i wandered around for 20 minutes trying to locate the ticket office and the platforms, almost as big as Heathrow Airport but with only a fraction of the signs. I had been delayed by a tube being late as a jumper had managed to shutdown the tube line for 2 hours and create a huge backlog, then i missed my connection by 3 minutes, so i had soup and a sandwich in a really nice food court in the station, more like an airport really. The train ride was great apart from one of the engines catching fire and having to stop in the middle of nowhere for 30 minutes and then having to change my train and lug my big bag over the platforms and onto another train where i couldn't get a seat, life is such, by the time i got to Chesterfield the night was black at 4.45pm, and raining and cold, i went to my sisters house and settled in with 10 cups of tea and biscuits, I went to bed that night and slept 13 hours, yes 13 hours, the best sleep i have had in 10 years i think, i felt great, the next day i was processing my banking statements, i found i had 2 accounts that I didn't realise i had, and they had charged me £40 to have a dollar account that i thought i had closed 4 years ago, i was also charged tax on my interest on my Euro account, this was due to me having my credit card delivered to Australia and then the bank decided i was not a resident anymore and informed the tax office, miserable buggers, cost me £350, i wasn't happy, I had to spend 2 hours in the bank getting all my account sorted, i demanded that they eliminate the dollar account and not charge me, which they did, but as for the tax, you can't get your tax back and unfortunately it was only 10 days ago that the tax had been paid. Well no it is a matter of waiting until i travel Tuesday morning to the airport at 3.20am, that isn't nice is it, but at least i have a nice destination, Tijuana Mexico, just hope the drug barons don't think I am a US police spy and bury me in the sand.