A whole new journey: grandparenting here we come

All things going well, by the time you read this. I will probably be sitting have breakfast with my newly arrived granddaughter in Sevenoaks in Kent, England.

Oh yes, my wife, my son and his wife will probably also be there… It’s quite amazing how aviation has been able to bring families together, especially over the last 30 years, as airlines have grown in size and number and airfares have come down.

On our first visit to the UK in 1986, we each paid R3 500 to fly “Silver Class” (the equivalent of today’s Premium Economy, I suppose) to the UK.

That is about R47 000 each today. Our flights to London this time, direct on British Airways (BA), totalled R30 000, a third of what we paid the first time. True enough, we went economy, while Premium Economy might cost twice that.

Booking

Booking and paying for the tickets online took 20 minutes, as opposed to more than a day back in 1986, because we had to wait to telex confirmation. But going abroad is more than just booking the tickets.

In the UK unlike in Europe public transport is poor and expensive. So, you need to hire a car if you want to get around quickly and economically.

Booking a car as part of the BA flights deal also saved us some pennies. Our Class A car (Fiat 500 or similar) cost us R12 500 for 20 days, less fuel.

That is quite a bit more than an equivalent hire car in SA, though, which would cost around R7 000 on the same terms.

Collecting the car was a matter of boarding a shuttle bus at terminal 5 at Heathrow, for a less than 10-minute ride to the Budget car hire depot.

These days, nobody uses maps – most of us rely on Google Maps on our phones to get around. So, first stop on clearing customs and immigration at Heathrow was to get a local SIM card.

These will give you 50Gb and unlimited calls in the UK for about R500. A bargain, if you ask me.

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Leaving home

Then, there is another unexpected and quite heavy, extra expense – just getting to and from OR Tambo International Airport.

We’ve always either been dropped off and collected by friends and family or have left the car with people who offer long term parking.

This time, there was no-one available to play taxi driver and I am perturbed about the reports of the abuse of cars left in long-term parking operations at the airport.

Also, not being Uber “riders”, getting one to the Gautrain and then going on from there to the airport was not an option

The train alone is R434 for two people from Rosebank to the airport. That’s R868 both ways, without a few hundred extra for an Uber.

So we decided on the convenience of a door-to-door shuttle, which still set us back more than R1 300 for the drop off and then the collection.

Also not cheap. On this trip, apart for seeing how clever and pretty my granddaughter is – because she takes after me, naturally – I’m quite looking forward to driving.

A small car on the right roads in rural Britain is a much better proposition that the outsize Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle I had on loan last year when I visited.

Apart from that car’s bulk, getting it charged was a nightmare. And I felt I could never really relax because, apart from anything else, you have to be super alert driving in winter in the UK.

But now it’s spring and it’s a totally different place. Although a little chilly, England is, as poet William Blake put it, “a green and pleasant land”.

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