1983 - Snow and the QE2 - almost there!

Wednesday 14 December 1983 – Zurich

We had a very early night last night. Rab was asleep by about 20.00 and I had to turn out the light at 21.00 as I was disturbing her and Matt. Despite that we slept through until 08.00 and although Rab said she felt a bit better, she is far from well.

After the usual good breakfast and sending off a bundle of laundry (which has just come back – cost f115/$50 for eight shirts, 10 underpants and 8 pairs of socks) we set off for town and wandered around bickering until about 12.30 when we had some grilled cervelat etc at Jelmoli. Nothing like food to stop Herberts arguing. (When we were all young and living at home, my mother would not allow any talking on Sundays until we got back from church and had our breakfast – no food; no talk!)

Rab was feeling a bit washed out so we came back to the hotel and I left her there having a nap while Matt was paging through his multitude of catalogues yet again. I went off to the Zurich Landsmuseum which neither of my two travelling companions wanted to see (both being averse to museums generally). For once they were absolutely right. Even I could not drag up much enthusiasm for the collection of old farming implements and maps on show.

I headed home view Murka to pick up a bottle of Pear William and some chocolate plus a bag of chestnuts for the sickly one. We sat eating and drinking and watching television until suppertime. Rab felt that she shouldn’t go out in the cold so Matt and I nipped along to Burgerland for burgers for two. I stuck to my wurstli on rye.

And so to the end of a quiet day – off to England tomorrow.

Thursday 15 December 1983 – Southampton

Another bad day, the finale of which is that when I came to write this I was unable to find my pen which is either at the du Theatre or lost in transit. I think the latter. It started off badly because I was awake at about 04.30 unable to sleep despite having turned out the light at 21.30 after protests were registered. I was worrying about all sorts of things, as you do at that time of the morning, the main one being whether our errant suitcase would be where it was meant to be. Another being that we would not be able to get confirmation of our Amsterdam/Southampton flight.

Rab wanted to be up early to do her hair so I got her up at 06.30. I felt pretty grim, some of it no doubt psychosomatic, but in fairness I think it was also fighting off Rab’s cold. We finally got all our goods into the multiplicity of receptacles and after a hearty Continental breakfast I felt much better. We paid our bill and decided to catch the 11.10 bus out to the airport rather than the 12.10 as planned. We had a last stroll down Limmatquai and to the Co-op and then we were off to the airport where Lo and Behold! – No Suitcase!!

The Railways people were very polite, but as I could see, there was no suitcase. Could it have been removed by SwissAir, I suggested, and forwarded to Amsterdam? Horror! Oh, No! Not possible. If that had been done there would have been an entry in the ledger and, as I could clearly see, there was no such entry. Clearly it had gone astray and if I could just fill in these 10,000 or so forms they would see if it could be found.

At this stage, since I had left Matt and Rab back at the airport, I thought I should just bring them up to date. So back to the Flughaven for me. I was certain that SwissAir must have uplifted the case, so leaving Matt and Rab to check in – with the check in clerk giving us further discomfort by initially telling Rab that we were waitlisted for both flights – I went forth to do battle with SwissAir. Telling my story again and again as I was sent up the line of command, I finally spoke to The Chef. No, he assured me, SwissAir could not have forwarded the suitcase because, if they had done that, there would have been a file. No file, no suitcase! I suggested that we might telephone Innsbruck to ask what they had asked to be done. Impossible! But if I wished to make a call from the Post Office, well, of course I could do so.

At that stage I became a little more forceful and demanded that the call be made. It was. And guess what? Contrary to all rules and regulations, the case had been collected, without signatures, without journal entries, without a file being created and had been sent on to Amsterdam. No apologies from anyone, mind, just a bit of sheepishness. Much relieved I rejoined Matt and Rab and we were soon on our way to Amsterdam. Nice seats and a tasty cold meal – Fillet of Beef Wellington – with some spectacular views of snow peaks and fields.

Down at Amsterdam I left Rab and Matt again as I went off in search of the elusive case. It was finally tracked down in KLM’s lost property section and to add insult to injury I had to pay f5 to retrieve it. It was a relief to have found it and to finally have our flight here to Southampton confirmed.

We had about four hours to fill in Schipol and we enjoyed ourselves, watching videos and browsing through the shops. We were not certain what type of plane we were flying on, except that it was small. Just how small was quite a shock when we went to the departure gate. There dwarfed by a couple of Jumbos on each side was a twin engine high wing monoplane built by Short in Belfast. It looked rather like a shipping container with wings attached. We initially thought we were in luck as there were only four other people there, but as the time for the flight drew nearer, more and more people turned up and in the end the plane was pretty well full. As I say, it is a small plane and seating is one/two seats across the aisle, with no overhead lockers. So the three of us sat abreast with all our flight bags on our laps or around our feet.

Not very much room, but a comfortable flight of one hour forty minutes. It was odd being able to see the shipping and the waves so clearly as we flew across the Channel at a fairly low altitude. We managed to have a pleasant meal and a couple of drinks, but poor Matt suffered with his ear problem when we came into Southampton, as he had coming in to Amsterdam, as he was clogged up with his cold. The Southampton airport was very small and we cleared Customs and Immigration with ease but then – no taxis!

We finally tracked down a man who was alleged to be a taxi driver (although Rab has her doubts and theories about that) who told us that the hotel that Mitchell Cotts had booked us into was about 18 miles and £30 out of town! We got him to bring us into the city for £4.50 and we found a room in the (externally) rather splendid Polygon Hotel. It was a bit more pricey than we had been paying at £46 bed only but it is very comfortable although it does show its age and a degree of lack of maintenance.

We are hoping we will only be here for one night but there have been some problems reported regarding the QE2 following her recent refit and she was one day late for her shakedown cruise, so here’s holding thumbs. After we had checked in, we had a stroll downtown to the local Burger King for the Philistines to have a bite to eat and on the way back we saw a ship all lit up down at the docks. Rab was sure it was the QE2 although the funnel looked the wrong colours to me. We went up to three young policemen who were off on an urgent mission, so they said, and asked them if it was the QE2. “Oh no’, they said “That’s the Canberra.”

And so to bed after a rather full and frantic day.