All was going well with Ali's trip to Australia to see her family until she reached the BA check-in desk. Somewhere between leaving Eurostar and arriving in Heathrow Ali misplaced her passport. Lost, nicked? We may never know. Either way she was about to have to forgo her entire trip. Darling BA moved her ticket on 24 hours with the words 'it's a pity as we were about to give you a complimentary upgrade to First Class' - (worth having - we came back that way last year). Still, at least the ticket wasn't lost.
An overnight stay with Yvonne, our friend and wrangler of the impossible, who lives in London left Ali ready to tackle the passport office. By some great stroke of fortune I had taken copies of Ali's passport and birth certificate years ago and, after a few minutes trawling through an old computer to find them, I winged them off through the ether to Yvonne's computer. Armed with these documents, a skip load of charm and a great deal of height (both Ali & Yvonne are 6 footers) the Passport Office very graciously said they'd have a new passport ready at 6.30pm. Just three hours before Ali's flight and quite a distance through rush hour traffic back to Heathrow from central London. Meanwhile I applied for a new Australian visa to go with her new passport from my computer here in France. It worked, she took off and is currently having a lovely time with Don, Pam, Trisha & Tam.
Thank God for technology - and Macs which don't fail you in your hour of need.
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