England, my England, I'm leaving you. Away from freezing February's snow, via a fab time in a Moroccan café in London with Lady Lynne to fabled lands in the east.
OK, enough of my attempts to be pretentious. From now on all pretentiousness will be genuine, unintended, pure pretentiousness. All through January and February I remained unsure whether I was doing the right thing. Did I really want to go? Did I really want to go to India? Did I know enough about the place? Did I have the right kit? Could I carry it? What was the point? Why had I caught a cold just now? Would my mortage provider ever give me permission to rent my flat to the couple who were due to move in on 1st March? (After several fruitless attempts to find out during January and February, they finally told me they'd lost my application and asked me to submit another one a week before I was due to leave.)
The maximum tourist visa was for six months. So to have the maximum time there, I'd have to get my visa the day before I travelled. This meant departing for London at stupid o'clock on the 28th, waiting in a queue that by 8 am was already fearsomely long and hoping there'd be no hitch.
At the embassy, I was one of 1500 applicants they permit each day, and seen to by a man who expected me not to give him any questions, just my passport and £30 and to come back for the passport later that day.
My passport, complete with visa, was returned to me at 2pm but I still hadn't heard about the rental permission. My rental agent finally got through to the mortage provider and secured permission around 3pm. This permission came through while I was waiting for Lynne at the Royal Academy. She took me to a moroccan café where we chatted, laughed and drank funky teas.
As dark fell, we parted, full of giggles and warmth. I collected my luggage and went to the hotel near Heathrow I'd booked so that I would be in time for my 10am flight. The morrocan café had given us some postcards so I sent one of these to my parents, telling them I had got lost and ended up in Morocco.
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006