Day Two Monday 18th September

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 Early morning London. Moving through customs. In the past, it seemed to take ages but this time the lines moved very quickly. Except Melody was pulled aside from the automatic customs check. Ruby and I waited for her and the customs guy made a few jokes about not smiling at the camera and me not slipping him 20 quid. But funnier than that.

We grabbed our bags and headed to the Elizabeth Line train for the short journey to West Ealing and our hotel. The girls turned on me as we got to the lifts. They thought we were taking a taxi. I had promised a taxi. Well no..the hotel is almost on the station and travel time is 10 minutes shorter. So they gave me a hard time for the whole trip. 

First, we had to get Oyster Cards. (Which since I have found out we don't need anymore, you can use your credit card) I had forgotten to bring ours from home but since they were from 2012 they might be out of date. The assistant said to put 50 quid on each. We thought that was a lot but after a couple of journeys, we found that maybe that might be right.

Got to West Ealing and a 2-minute walk later we were at the Drayton Court Hotel. A beautiful-looking hotel full of history. Film-based with the Ealing Studios theme running throughout. Lavender Hill Mob was filmed here. And it's got West London's biggest Beer Garden. Interesting fact. Ho Chi Minh worked in the kitchen here when he studying to be a chef. You can't make these things up.

However, it's 9am in the morning and we can't check in until 3pm. For some reason, I had thought we could get an early check-in at 12 but no this was not the case. As we store the bags away the girls start up on how we could have taken our time getting here and now they have to hang about until 3pm.  Great start.


We walk across the road to get SIM cards for the girl's phones. Ruby tries to pay with old pound coins from 2012 but they don't take them anymore. The lady behind the counter offers to take Ruby's coins from her and swap them at the post office. Very kind. Ruby doesn't take up the offer. I'm trying out Roaming so I don't need one. But they have Hobnobs. My favourite biscuit!

We take a walk up to Ealing. It's a bit quiet and a bit like Footscray really. We're very tired and stop at a Starbucks for a coffee and soft drinks. Mel has a Frapicinno which I still don't know what that is. They pop in their Sims and then begin talking me into getting a Sim rather than paying 10 bucks a day for 1 gb. So on the way back I get one myself and Ruby relents and gives up her pound coins. I now have a new phone number so hopefully, no one urgently tries to call me.

We get back to the Hotel and it's noon so I have a beer. And we sit and wait for two hours until our rooms are ready. It's so good to see a bed and after a shower lay down for a quick nap . which turns out to be 5 hours. Not a good idea. 

Just after 7 we struggle out of the hotel and walk to an Indian Restaurant. The food was tasty and a little different to back home but we were so tired we couldn't eat much and went back to the hotel. I have to mention the cool glasses each brand of beer comes in though. Asahi. Cobra. Very cool glasses and add to the enjoyment of the beer.

More sleep but then wake up at 3 a.m. the next morning. Jet Lag. Evil.


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