The Outlaws #5 - Passport to Pimlico

With the alarm set for 5.30am, it was just like a normal working day for me as I crawled bleary-eyed out of my pit to use the bathroom and make way for Nikki and Shirley. After a quick cup of coffee, I ran them to Piccadilly Station, retrieved their tickets from the FastTicket machine and made sure they knew which platform to use for the 7.05 to Euston. That will get them in at around 9.20am and then they have to make their way to Trafalgar Square.

I advised the tube to Charing Cross but Nikki didn't fancy the crush, preferring instead the option of a taxi despite my warning that at that time of day the queues would be massive.

My job for the day was looking after Neil. This is not so very different from the running order established at the beginning of the week, except that I have sole responsibility for making sure he takes his pills, doesn't get lost anywhere and doesn't spend too long in the pub. I returned home and waited for him to join the rest of us in bidding hello to Wednesday, took him out to buy his papers and made his breakfast.

Around 11am I had a call from Nikki to say they'd arrived at Canada House after queuing for more than half an hour for the taxi. Overall the journey from Euston to Trafalgar Square (four stops on the tube) had taken them an hour. I dropped Neil at the bookies in time to place his first bet and returned home to investigate the cost of using a courier to pick up the passport - assuming it will be ready tomorrow and that this would prove a cheaper option than going back again on the train.

One of the problems is that, even though they had already pulled all of Shirley's details from the records and were therefore sitting there with her photo in front of them before she ever walked in the room, the completed application still has to be checked and verified in Ottawa before the UK embassy can issue a replacement. Thank God for the time difference, but even allowing for that there is no guarantee they can turn this round in a day, and absolutely no chance of it being achieved while you wait.

The problem with the courier option is that if someone else picks it up on your behalf, they must be carrying a signed letter of authorisation from the person in whose name the passport is issued. An original, not a photocopy or fax. So the courier would have to start at Manchester, pick up the letter, drive to London (to arrive before the closing time of 1.30pm), collect the passport and return to Manchester. The first firm I tried estimated this cost to be £208+VAT, the second said vaguely that it would be "about £300."

Suddenly a second train journey was looking like the most attractive option.

Nikki even started to think about sending her Mum back and staying overnight herself to collect the passport, but with no guarantee it would be there tomorrow (the staff member they spoke to even said it might take "two or three days") this just seemed like a step too far.

I picked Neil up from the bookies and took him for a cheese and paté lunch at the Royal Oak. With not knowing how long the processing would take at Canada House, we'd booked Nikki and her Mum on a fairly late train coming back. Luckily Virgin took pity on them and let them on an earlier train - the 15.05 - so after another spell in the bookies and a pint at the Southern we went to meet the train just before 6 and headed off for dinner at Deckers.

Conversation at dinner, naturally, centred on the stupidity of a process that forced already stressed citizens to perform two round trips of 400 miles in as many days, and then strayed into the likelihood of the paperwork being turned round in Ottawa overnight in time for collection tomorrow. If it isn't, then Shirley and Neil's tickets for their flight on Friday will be worthless and they'll have to renegotiate another flight on Air Transat (who only fly twice a week) or go for the much more expensive Air Canada option - who at least fly every day.

That is, thankfully, a bridge we don't need to cross just yet. A problem for another day. Tomorrow's problem.