Return of the Native - Part 1

Cawthorne at Cawthorne

Sydney to Dubai

I really need to take a class in Remedial 24 Hour Clocks and Ticket Reading.  I very nearly had us at the airport by 3.00pm for a flight that left at 9.00pm.  I suppose I was a little anxious, travel is more complex for us these days.

In fact, it's more complex for everyone now that Tony Abbott's newly formed Federal Fascist Force has brand spanking new powers, "Don't screw with me!" style paramilitary uniforms and attitude to match.  This was certainly the case with the hulking moron who kept insisting Peter stand on the appointed spot to have his eyes scanned.  Of course the machine is designed to search for two eyes, not one eye and a patch, but the Hulk simply wasn't getting it and had no intention of listening to me or the three FFF people behind the control desk who kept telling him to move Peter on.  A similarly uniformed woman finally got up and threw him a chunk of raw steak which provided sufficient enough a distraction for us to pass through.

But I did feel genuine sympathy for the FFF folk who work in the place where you can reclaim the GST on recently purchased items over $300 that you're taking out of the country.  I was armed with my new iPad and camera, their respective receipts and all the appropriate paperwork which I had completed online, dutifully printing one of those magic icon thingies that would hopefully identify me and, in fact, did.  Of course nobody from China had thought to do the same.  The place was a chaotic insight into a primitive provincial marketplace with people jostling, pushing and yelling at the top of their lungs - a distressing taste of Oriental hell.

My heart went out to the poor souls who are expected to function in this bear pit.  The banshee bitch who pushed her way to the counter next to me was quite literally screaming at them and everyone else so there was no small look of delight on the face of the chap attending to me when I eventually snapped, turned to her and yelled equally loudly, "Shut up woman!  There are other people on this planet and I'm one of them!"  That my inner school teacher of mine is escaping more and more with age and I'm good with that.

The flight to Dubai was as comfortable as a flight in cattle class can be apart from the French 20-something beside me who had been raised by failed Gallic post-baby boomers to believe that his existence was paramount above that of all others.  Some parents just need jailing!

Dubai to Manchester

We had just enough time to queue for a tiny toilet then queue again at immigration before hitting the duty free for gin and boarding another Emirates A380 but I'm here to tell you friends, all Emirates A380s are not the same.  This one was an anti-Tardis - bigger on the outside than in.  Thank Gough they saved the disturbingly cosy version for the shorter leg of the trip or Vincent C'est Moi may not have survived.

Six and a half hours into a very long seven and a half hour flight the excitement of it all finally hit me.  We were about to see Lin for the second time in 12 months after not even being in the same hemisphere for the previous 36 years.  I was also 'coming home to a place I'd never been before' to borrow a line from John Denver.  Both sides of my father's family were from the Midlands and the North of England, many from the same places as Lin's family and many of them from the coal mines just like her family.

It is quite amazing what can happen when two maps come out of a vending machine in a place like the Los Angeles Greyhound Terminal and you chase after a couple of people you met briefly on the airport bus to give them one.

Cawthorne

It was wonderful reconnecting with Lin who whisked us straight off to the village of Cawthorne in South Yorkshire which turned out to be a lot posher than we could ever have expected.  

Our very own parish - who'd have thought it!?

I first became aware of Cawthorne through a woman I taught who had once worked in the pub there during a backpacking tour of the UK many years earlier.  That was when the Spencer Arms was a real pub full of real Yorkshiremen who only wanted beer which was a good thing because their accents were so thick she could understand little else.  These days it's a gastro pub with smart food and smart beer, both of which we enjoyed immensely.

The Spencer Arms

In fact the whole village has scrubbed up beautifully - a northern version of Midsomer without the murders - or so I assume.  The people we met were all charming and spoke perfectly intelligible English.  A small part of me was disappointed about the latter.

Trash & Treasure

Closed as most things at on Wednesday afternoon.

We will be spending the next three weeks with Lin at home just out of Durham, traveling around the North with a three nights on Holy Isle then a three more on a longboat on the Leeds to Liverpool Canal.  After that we're off to London for ten days so look back from time to time and see what we're up to.  There will be a new blog each week.