I thought I'd nip into Marlow to see about some Visit South Pacific Air Pass tickets that we'd enquired about. `Nip' has to be taken with a pinch of salt here. Not Thomas Cook's fault, the line to Flightsavers was a bit busy.
Anyway I was given a free ETA visa for Australia "because we'd spent so much," (which was nice) as we waited for Flightsavers to finish shopping or whatever they were up to.
The other careful move was to use my recently acquired American Express Green card to buy the Tonga tickets. My old boss, Len Chard, (and old mucker of John Allen -- long story) used to work at VISA and pointed out that a decent sized spend here in the UK ("buy someone a washing machine," was his actual suggestion -- what if they didn't want one?) would give me a credit history in the US which could come in quite handy.
Then the Star Alliance tickets were produced. Some poor sod had to hand write all thirteen of our flights. Good use of technology.
I then drove off to the Wirral to see Mum and Dad. I must practice my can-opening-whilst-driving technique as not only did I spill the Coke over me and the car seat but split my jeans as well. No mean trick.
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.