Day 27 - OZ & UK - " Waiting, waiting .. " !

While Kev was enjoying the trappings of business class and working out how many positions he could get his chair in to - I took the more squeezier option heading back to the UK by way of BA.

In short easy bike box loading / off loading, as was access to the car hire point - what followed though can only be described as torture as i waited to get my hire car.

At airports all over the world I have rarely had to wait for more than 10 minutes for a car hire but for some reason at Europcar Heathrow Airport their ticketing system  indicated an average wait of 1 & 1/2 hours just to be served !

With people flying in from all over the world in variius states of fatigue this was a recipe for disaster - sure enough one fairly placid Swiss couple I got talking to eventually lost it slamming their fists on the booking table yelling "we just want our damned car " !

Enter the most strangely employed person I have ever met. Ostensibly a customer services rep Marcus had obviously been employed to calm the temperatures of irate waiting customers.

A cross between Lenny Henry the comedian and a retired UK soccer player with the build of a night club bouncer Marcus would instinctively seek out the rooms "hot points" (and there were many) by engaging potentially volatile customers in friendly social conversation - if that didn't work he resorted to an occasional comedic routine - if that didn't work he'd do a ballett pirouette and if that didn't work he'd just go and get the branch manager (Marcus by the way is a professional entertainer / actor)

Sure enough i had to endure my 90 minutes to finally be given access to my hire car only to be told by 2 persons en route that i wouldn't get my bike box in my compact car hire !

This had one a little worried as i'd never had a problem in a hatchback and sure enough after folding the rear seats and adjusting the front ones so I could drive resembling Mr Bean i found i had at least 5 mm to spare !

My adventure didn't quite end there saying goodbye to Marcus i took a wrong turn somewhere exiting Heathrow heading on the M4 to god knows where before I finally recognized Bristol and realized I wasn't going too far wrong !

I have heard from H since arriving in the UK and its good to know that he made it back to Australia safely even though he failed to work out how to adjust his business class seat and no doubt annoyed the hell out of the attendants asking them if they had a Pepsi Max every 5 minutes !

Its a tough time for Kev but he's surrounded by good friends and has already availed himself of the freeloader circuit that he's well accustomed to !

Hurry back H !!!