In a message dated 22/05/2010 18:42:53 GMT Daylight Time, elationrelat...@yahoo.com writes:
> Some bring a prepaid, self-address mailer, just in case their expensive > or favorite needles are at risk. That means either stepping out of line, or > trusting someone else to post it, but perhaps helpful to some. > Another hitch here, no post boxes at most UK airports, and those that do have them they have a teeny narrow slit so parcel bombs can't be posted into them. Litter bins are very thin on the ground too, for much the same reason. Also, once you are as far as security you are in a sort of no-man's-land, (at busy periods this can be after queueing for quite some time) and it would be very difficult to pass things back to anyone still in the airport. (I am talking about the large airports here - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead are the three I know best. At Inverness on the other hand, which is a small airport with probably mostly (only?) internal flights, although they take the security just as seriously, because of the size and layout you probably could hand things back to someone waiting 'just in case'.) I'm not trying to be awkward about this, but as I said previously, after decades of being very aware of taking security very seriously following the Irish problems, we try not to leave any easy targets around. If our government decide that a thing must be done in a particular way, that is the way it will be done. It is said, and it could well be true, that the UK is the only country to follow all the EU directives. All the rest of the countries follow the ones that benefit them, or fit in best with their lifestyle. Same sort of rule-following mentality. I suspect that the airports thing is just that it is easier and fairer to treat the security as if we are always on the highest level of alert, so the passengers know where they are. Although it might be a pain, it is actually easier if you get used to never having x, y or z in your hand luggage, than it would be if you could take it sometimes and not others, depending on what intelligence the authorities have received recently. I don't think that bobbins, as bobbins, would be a problem although they might want to see them to find out what all the x-rayed rings of wire are, but it would be unwise to push it and try to have a working pillow in your handluggage. However, despite all our other problems, they aren't paranoid about wood and bone yet. I did have a few anxious moment when I remembered that a couple of my bobbins on the pillow in my suitcase were probably ivory, not bone, and might have all sorts of restrictions on them, but I wasn't asked to open my cases so I can't have looked too guilty. I am sure that anyone who has room to make bobbin lace on a plane must fly on a much posher airline than I do. When the seat in front is only an inch or two off your knees, and your elbows are kept fairly close to your sides, lacemaking is not going to be comfortable enough to tempt me - however small the pillow is. Just give me a good book and I'm quite happy. Jacquie - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachnemodera...@yahoo.com
