It shouldn't happen to a Grandma....

Mum and Dad are coming tomorrow for 5 weeks. Their flight is around midday but the taxi was picking them up at 5am (!!) in case of hold ups on the M25. They said they'd rather be sure they got to Heathrow in plenty of time than be rushing at the last minute. I, of course, said something along the lines of  "Nobody ever gets there the full 3 or 4 hours ahead of time, you must be crazy", but parents being as they are were not to be put off.
I'm so excited that I couldn't wait so decided I'd ring them at the airport to make sure they'd checked in safe and sound -thank you skype for making international mobile calls so cheap. I caught them in the Thai airlines business class lounge (if you don't mind !) waiting to board. Mum sounded distinctly subdued and I was worried they were already disappointed with their splash out on business class :o(
Turns out she was nearly turned away at check-in. The travel agent applied for their visas for them when booking their tickets, but although Dad's is fine, there's some irregularity in the way Mum's was put through and it came up "invalid" on the computer. They honestly thought she was going to be turned away from the flight but, as they were checking in hours early, the airline had time to put a call through to the Aussie embassy who told them to let them board but she'll have to be interviewed by immigration at this end. Poor thing - it's really taken the wind out of her sails, and she was so excited to be coming. I'm seriously hoping all will be fine. Western Australia is abbreviated to WA and it's nickname is the "Wait Awhile" state cos they tend to be pretty laid back. I'm hoping their immigration dept will live up to that and give a 69 yr old woman a break. Worse still she's bringing all sorts of "contraband" in the form of 2 types of tea and some calpol for us. She was always going to declare it anyway, but what's the betting they'll take it all off her now and she'll have wasted her money. Really hope their holiday can only improve from here. I'll let you know what happens, but in the meantime, remember she only got on at all cos she got there in loads of time. I might change my check-in habits in future.