Excelsior

We left Paris by the Eurostar on Sunday. Since it was the weekend there were line works which sent us via Lille and added an hour and a quarter to the journey.

On arrival at St Pancras we were met by a cousin of W’s. Since  all of us were toting bags we didn’t want to go far, but I was keen to visit St Pancras Old Church, as courtesy ancestry.co.uk I have discovered that a second great- grandmother was baptised there in November 1818. The church is actually quite a find: it claims to have been a site of Christian worship since the 4th century, although most of the oldest bits visible now are Norman, and it got an exterior makeover in the mid nineteenth century when it had ceased to be the main parish church ( hence “old”). 

There is an etching dated 1815, so we know more or less what 3rd great grandmother saw outside in 1818-

A young Thomas Hardy was given the job of moving graves and stones to make way for civic works. The available  mortal remains got shifted I think, but TH decided to arrange surplus gravestones around a tree, which has swallowed some as it grew.

It was pleasing that the cultural guide identified the font cover as 17th century and font itself matched ancient Norman style; even the stone stand inscribed in English and Latin may have been around in 1818, so the whole bit is likely to be where baby 2nd great grandmother was presented.

We took the Piccadilly line to Heathrow 5 and walked to the Sofitel for a very comfortable overnight stay. Next morning we were bound for Rome and had the gold trophy worst ever experience in international travel in my 57 years of flying experience, spoiled by airport bureaucracy and a barebones airline (BA, done by Iberian, ). Memo:  never leave by Heathrow again if possible ( not possible for us) the pip was the security delightfully micro unpacking suitcases and in my case removing small toothpaste stored with toothbrush to a clear plastic bag, and binning my Cancer Council 110ml tube of sunscreen. Nearby passengers experiencing worse. BA needlessly cancelled the published carryon limit at the boarding gate because the plane was 

full    (there was ample overhead stowage at our seat) and my bag with water was whisked away to the hold. No water or anything else on the plane except their £1.80 bottles, so the three hours were sat out until we fell into the melée of Rome. Perhaps we missed a sign, but it seemed only 2 choices, (Europe or toutes passports),  but it took more than an hour of queuing in toutes to sight passport control in the distance, and would have been much longer had not an official eventually waved us to the European queue. Memo: don’t fly BA, don’t disembark at Rome.