Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Cold Cold Cold Tenby

Ram and I are already in Tenby. The temperatures are supposed to be > 15 Celsius in the day hours, which is long and > 10 Celsius at night but no no no. The actual temperatures were like 12 Celsius day hours and single digit night time. Sun up is at about 3.30 am and sunset at 9.30 pm. My body clock is misbehaving and I do not know if I am jet-lagged, tired or just plain sleepy. So, when I sit down and relax, and if my eyes droop I will just let sleep happen. I will not fight it.

We left home early on Sunday 17th morning to catch the 10.00am flight from KLIA to LHR. Tessa sent us to the airport and we had a preflight ‘flight’ to the airport at ~ 170km/hr on the freeway. In spite of that there were several cars that were faster than us but not a BMW Z4 driven by a young man (I wondered if it was his car as he looked too young to own such a car!!) with the soft top open. Perhaps he was just enjoying an easy drive or just cautious with a borrowed car!!

Check-in at the flight counter was a breeze as I used my upgraded frequent traveler card and I did not have to queue. Yes, flying off to Tenby so many times over the last six months or so and to Bintulu twice in a month for the last six months and the three or four return trips to Terengganu per month six months before that have earned me enough recognition to be upgraded. We had more than an hour before we have to report at the flight gate so we took the opportunity to relax and enjoy lovely breakfast at the airline lounge. Flight was on schedule, and there was an empty seat next to Ram’s, so it was pleasant extra space. There was a strong headwind, somewhere between 120 to 160 kilometers an hour, throughout the journey and I think the pilot had to overwork the engines to keep schedule. He overdid it I think, because we arrived London half an hour early but the pilot came on the radio to say that there is bunching of flights to land at Heathrow and we have to wait our turn. In the end we landed a quarter of an hour behind schedule. The bunching of flights landing in LHR caused a long queue at the immigration and it was a good hour before we cleared our passports and retrieved our baggage. That aside the flight was pleasant, with good service provided by the cabin crew, and easy passage through customs. We were quite apprehensive as we brought some herbal treatment stuff for Sita to use during her confinement and we expected customs to give us a hard time. But, as Sita always says, “Do not worry too much. Whatever it is, things will usually work out in the end. Just put your heart to it and a little prayer of course”.

Sita was waiting for us, beaming end to end when she saw us, at the exit of customs, happy to see all our baggage intact and to learn that there was no custom check. Fahrul was then driving around the airport area as Najla was then sleeping and did not want to wake her up. She continued to sleep even when we got into the car and only woke up about half an hour later, maybe awakened by our conversations and laughter. It’s a 5 hours drive to Tenby from London, including ‘toilet service and pit stop’ and I fell asleep part of the way. We arrived in Tenby at about 10pm and it was just getting dark!!

The next day was a confusing day for our body clock, don’t know whether to sleep in or go out. The rainy and ‘balmy’ weather does not help any. It was much nicer to snuggle in between the bed sheets than be up and about. However, today was a much nicer day and I could go for a walk around the area in the late afternoon just in my long-sleeved T and ordinary pants. Temperature was about 15 Celsius but it did not stay that way long. By 7pm it became cloudy and balmy again. I hope the weather will improve as the spring moves on to summer…….. maybe a little farfetched a hope for UK, knowing what the weather here had been over the years!!


MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Tenby, Wales, Pembrokeshire