Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 2 - Singapore to London

Peter flying high and lovin' it!

I’ve read that the SilverKris Lounge at Changi is the mother ship of all SilverKris Lounges and indeed it is!  The sates and other mamak that’s on offer have lived up to their reputation as well.  We paced ourselves though, saving space for the Lobster Thermidor on the London leg of the flight and there’s another funny old story.

Australia and New Zealand have been in something of a fortunate isolation bubble during this COVID-19 pandemic but the closer you get to Europe the more cautious people become and that includes airline crews.  The menu has been modified to minimise staff handling so our much anticipated Lobster Thermidor was off, replaced by a DIY sashimi version which wasn’t too bad once we’d each put away half a litre of warmed saki.

Lobster Sashimi

That had us ready for a snooze and we slept like babies in our flat bed seats.  In fact I was so comfortable I felt as if I was in my own bed at home.  I even heard what sounded like the garbage truck going up and down our street but we would have been over the Middle East at about that time so it was probably just a couple of fighter planes checking us out as they sometimes do in that neck of the woods.  Of course that’s much better than encountering a Russian surface-to-air missile as can also happen.

Heathrow was an absolute breeze this time around.  It appears that 7.30am on a Thursday morning is the go for some reason or other so do keep that in mind for your next trip to the UK.  We were though customs and immigration faster than you can say “temperature check” and on a shuttle to the Europcar depot.

I booked a Vauxhall Insignia last time and we ended up being downgraded to a Skoda Octavia which had heaps of boot space and wasn’t a bad drive but it was a full class lower than what we paid for, something that was eventually sorted with a stern letter and reparations were made.

This time I decided to approach the issue from the other direction so booked a Skoda Octavia in the hope that we might receive an upgrade and indeed we did.  We drove out onto the Western Ring Road in a Subaru Outback identical to our very own DeDe only several years her junior.  How spooky is that?

A Subaru Outback just like DeDe

We are currently stopped at a servo on the M40 near the turn-off to High Wycombe so I can have a piddle as I am wont to do more frequently with age although my PSA is fine.  Next stop and next blog Wales!