With Dad finally on our doorstep we decided to hire a car and head out and about on the weekend.

On Saturday we drove down to the southern tip of England to a town called Portsmouth. It’s rich in Naval history and was an extremely fascinating town to visit.

Portsmouth is the town where the Mary Rose, Victory and other Napoleonic era battle ships are stationed. It is also the place where 7000 ships left England for the D-Day attack in Normandy, France. While Dad was more fascinated in the ships, Michelle and I really enjoyed the D-Day museum they have down there. It’s rich in information and has an amazing display of tapestry that is like 70 metres long and shows the history of the D-Day invasion.

On Sunday, we drove out west to the Cotswolds. While we had been there before with our friends Michael and Robyn it was Dad’s first time. We managed to explore some new towns and had a great day just driving through the country and enjoying some fine pub food and cream teas with scones and clotted cream.

Update: 25/11/05 4:56pm GMT

Dad’s delivered safe n sound. It’s amazing how you can venture 10000 miles across the planet and not learn how to dial a number properly :)

Dad got to the tube station I had instructed him to but hadn’t thought to turn his phone on and call me to let me know that he was there. He waited for 2 hours in 0 degree temperatures before deciding to check into a hotel. It is here that he turned his phone on and that I managed to contact him.

Here’s the kicker, the hotel he checked into is directly across the road from our house. I went and found him, checked him out and got him into our nice little warm flat.

Oh Dad!

Update: 25/11/05 3:00pm GMT

His plane arrived at 11:26am this morning. It’s now 3 hours and 34 minutes later. Still no dad. Still no mobile turned on. This is ridiculous. I hope he is ok.

Update: 25/11/05 9:00am GMT

After a string of phone calls to the US, Canada and Australia I managed to find out that Dad doesn’t arrive until today. Let’s just say that the worry he has caused me will not be forgotten easily.

Thank God that today has turned out to be one of the most beautiful days. The walk into work helped cheer me up a bit. </endUpdate>

It’s 5:30pm on the 24th of November – a Thursday afternoon. It’s like every other Thursday afternoon except my father was supposed to have arrived in the UK about 5 hours ago.

Here’s the low down:-

• Dad told me he was arriving at 11:50am on Thursday 24th November at Heathrow Terminal 3.
• He didn’t give me his flight number, OR the airline he was travelling on OR where he was coming from.
• I know that he has been in Vancouver the last few days so I checked out flights arriving in Heathrow from Vancouver. There are NO flights coming from Vancouver.
• I checked all flights that were scheduled to arrive at Heathrow (all terminals) at 11:50am. No flights from anywhere that makes sense (Toronto, New York, etc)
• I’ve called his mobile about 12 times as well as sending text messages. His mobile phone is off and he probably didn’t turn on International Roaming.
• Dad does not have my new home address.
• Dad does not have my home or work phone numbers.
• We can only hope he has my mobile number.

I can only conclude that my Dad is ill-prepared and this annoys me greatly. I tried extracting valuable information from him but to no avail.

So he is either wondering around the freezing streets of London as we speak with no way to contact me or he hasn’t arrived yet (maybe he meant 11:50 tonight or 11:50am tomorrow).

Whatever the case, he has completely put our day out and now possibly tomorrow or the weekend.

Note to travellers – be prepared and at the very least turn your mobile phone on.

Spare a moments silence as I head to the doctors this arvo to get some nasty shots. We have to get vaccinated against some horrible diseases so we can go to Egypt for Xmas.

Update: 24/11/05

Although people complain non-stop about the NHS over here, Michelle and I had the most pleasant experience. Our shots were administered free of charge. The nurse was informative and friendly. I then also had a doctors appointment which went really well. A prescription that costs me $90 for back home cost me £6 here.

It seems as if the NHS works sometimes.

On our last o/s weekend trip for the year Michelle and I flew across to continental Europe to visit Venice.

Venice is Michelle’s favourite travel destination and she has been keen to take me ever since we arrived over here. It’s a beautiful city and it’s amazing how being there makes you feel like you just jumped back a 1000 years in history.

We arrived by water taxi and found our most luxurious hotel right in the center of the action. It was so worth paying a little extra for some top notch accomodation.

After enjoying relaxing sleeps in our massive King size bed and the most delicious hotel breakfasts we enjoyed a typical tourist’s life in the city of Venice.

We :-

• visited St. Marco’s square
• roamed the never ending street corridors
• ate loads of traditional (and more tasty than Aussie) Italian food – yes, lasagne, pizza, calzones and spaghetti
• travelled across to the island of Lido
• enjoyed Italian coffees, beers, and wine
• bought some Italian leather. Oh how I love my “softer than clouds” new leather gloves.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

The ride up the tower was short and quick but man, oh man, was it cold up there.

It would have been so nice to do a romantic gondola ride but at 80 euro a ride we had to pass.

The Basilica di San Marco was built in the 10th Century and is often subject to flooding. Just like Piazza San Marco.

There were some really interesting photographs and paintings of this Piazza when it was flooded. It would have been great to see firsthand.

The famous Rialto bridge is one of only a few bridges to cross the grand canal. This shot views the grand canal from the top of the bridge.

We walked past many of these canals just exploring the city. Beautiful.

Update: Here’s an interesting article explaining attempts being made to raise the sinking city.