Portsmouth Harbour

It was on Friday afternoon around six o’clock, that my mobile rang, I picked it up. It was my colleague. She was calling to ask me to go with her to Portsmouth tomorrow. There was an urgent case she wanted to meet a client at the Haslar detention centre. I said to her that I would be happy to go with her. We arranged the time to meet up tomorrow morning.

I hadn’t gone to work; I was home all day, looking after my son who had a fever and a sore throat. I took him to his GP in the morning and he was on antibiotics and painkillers. He looked well enough for me to go and work tomorrow. Well, I just thought "every little helps"!!

I went to the Internet, first checked for the train’s timetables and then looked up for Portsmouth websites to see if there is anything that we could go and visit. There was the harbour itself, Charles dickens birth place, the Cathedral and a few other places. I was not sure if we will have time for all that, but I wanted to have some information before going there and just in case we had the time, we know what we needed to look for…

I woke up a bit early and prepared lunch for myself and for my son. I left home after half eight. I got to waterloo and bought a ticket for Portsmouth. I waited for my friend to turn up and she soon came. We got into the train. She insisted that we sit in the coach next to the first class because she believed that it was cleaner and quieter and a no smoking coach, which I welcomed.

We talked about everything and anything, she told me about Kosova and Albania when they were in war with Serbians. She came here as a student but when her visa expired her country was not safe enough for her to return, then she had to seek asylum. She said that it was a very big deal for her at that time, not being able to go and visit her family and having to live for a period of time, which no one knew how long it would be, in a strange country. She told me about her family and relatives who had lost their homes, honours, jobs and their friends. It was so sad knowing what war does to individuals, their emotions and their mental states.

Time to time I looked out of the window, it was a beautiful sunny day and everywhere was green with lots of fields, trees and forests. It reminded me of our family outing days. We usually had few family-outing days every summer.

There were many stations before we get to Portsmouth. It took us two and a half hours by train to get there. Now we had to rush and get the ferry. Unlike woolwich ferry, this one was not free of charge; we had to pay two pounds to get in. But it was worth it. The sea was absolutely beautiful. Full of ships, yachts and boats. There were a few ferries. Two of them going to haslar, where we were going, one was on this side and the other was apparently on the other side to pick up the passengers. A Few others were going to Isle of Wight. Our ferry had three floors, ground floor, first floor and second floor. We sat on the first floor. I wished that my family were with me. That would have been heaven. It did not take us too long. We got to the other side and got off. In a few minutes we reached the other side.

Haslar was a very nice town. Very close to the sea. People seemed friendly but as I had my scarf on they were looking at me but it did not make me feel uneasy. Well not more than I made them anyway! I did not see any other Muslim with a scarf there. (My friend is Muslim but she doesn’t cover her hair). We asked someone where we could get a taxi to go to the detention centre. Soon after we were sitting in the taxi and in a few minutes we were there. it was a place with high walls and barbed wires on top of them. It reminded me of my countrys' prisons! The walls as high as sky! ( well maybe not THAT high!)

It was 40 minutes past one, and the visiting hours had not started yet. We decided to go and sit at the back of the building and have our lunch. It was still sunny and warm; we sat there in front of the sea and had our lunch. There were loads of seagulls flying over our heads and my friend was scared of them. There were some people who were fishing. She said that it is better to go and sit close to the fisher men because these seagulls had once taken her sandwich while she was eating and hurt her too! Anyway, we moved closer to an old fisherman. I don’t know how long he had been sitting there but I did not see him catching anything! There was a nice breeze from the sea and I called my son to see how he was and I wanted him to listen to the sea and the waves. It was just after two, when we got up and went to the detention centre.

After all the official papaerworks and checking on our Id cards, we were let in. the officers were very nice and polite despite what I thought before seeing them. When we finished, my friend had to copy some of the client’s documents and we were done for the day! Actually that was why we had come all this way from London.
She called a taxi from the detention centre’s reception and we left. The taxi took us back to the ferry and as it was there already, we ran to catch it, otherwise we had to wait for the other one to come back. After that we went to the train station and had to wait for the train for about 20 minutes. It was at six o’clock in the afternoon when train pulled into the platform. We bought coffee and sat in the train. After ten minutes I asked my friend to have a look at the documents. She looked for them. The more she looked the less she found them. Suddenly she said to me "oh my god! I've left them in the centre when I was calling the taxi! This hasn't happened to me in the last 8 years of my work." She tried calling the centre to ask them if they could fax them to her. After ten minutes they said that they found them but they couldn’t fax them, as they were legal documents. We had done one fourth of the journey. She had to call her manager to see what she will want her to do. Unfortunately she was told that she had to go back and get them. It was nearly 7 o’clock when she got off the train to go back all the way and come back again! I insisted to go with her but she said that I have a child and needed to go back.

It was few minutes past eight when I got home. When I called her at 9, she said that she had found the documents and she had just got into the train to London. I think she should be home by midnight or early morning. Poor thing.

With all these adventures, it was a nice day out for me and a memory to be remembered for life. Unfortunately we couldn't go and visit any of the places I looked for them the night before.
After that long journey, I was too tired and I knew that I would sleep well and sound that night.