Preparing Folkestone, United Kingdom

Folkestone, United Kingdom

Lots of running around in the days leading up to Christmas to prepare for this trip. A visit to the visa centre in Paddington of course. Lots of forms to fill in… and about £110 each for the visas! It was pretty painless really apart from the price. Flights booked. International flights are with Turkish Airlines from Gatwick. We’ve flown out with them before. Its about 4 hours to Istanbul, then on the ground for 2 hours and then 5 hours onto Mumbai. Obviously it is longer than a direct flight but pricewise there is no comparison. We paid £305 each London-Mumbai return which is a great price. Once in India, flights are very cheap so no worries there. Decided that we were going to be tired by the time we got here what with a busy Christmas and New Year plus the long flight so we have booked into the very lovely JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar. It’s almost brand new and very close to the airport. We plan to veg out there for a couple of days before moving on. We have loads of Marriott points so the stay is free. A touch of luxury to kick the winter off will do us the world of good. So, today we cleaned the house like madmen, put all the Christmas decorations back up in the loft, changed the bed, got everything shipshape. I like to come home from my travels to the house looking immaculate. So welcoming. And then the packing…. light clothes; chargers; sun product; kindles, old sandals that won’t come home….. our family photo calendar so that the girls are always wish us; a bag of medicine; pack of Andrex wet wipes, hand sanitiser, universal sink plug; power strip; adaptors. We’re pretty slick at it now.
One great sadness of this trip is that our friends Joe and Janet will not be in India with us this year. We had plans for Pondicherry with them as well as Goa this year, but fate has willed otherwise and we can only think of them daily, send them our love and pray for better times.