What the London Box Contained… :)

Mrs. MM and I had a combined baggage allowance of 140 kilos on our flight back from London to Manila (we travel to Cebu on PAL for business very often and a benefit is massive additional baggage allowances) and we had purchased hardly anything that wasn’t a food item, ingredient or kitchen related utensil during our brief Paris and London trip, so we had oodles and oodles of weight allowance available, and I am not one to waste that… :)

So on the morning of our departure, we bundled up and took the subway to the Borough Market (for a second visit) and headed straight to the florist/garden shop we had seen a couple of days before… Once the proprietress confirmed that she could box up whatever we purchased, we ended up buying two small and two large pine wreaths…

…along with three smallish branches for 2 pounds each! I have brought some strange things in my luggage home to the Philippines over the years, but this one ranks up there in the Top 10 unusual list of contents!

I did declare them as “christmas decor” when I arrived, but the inspector just waved us through anyway.

If I had known how difficult it would be to claim my fresh Christmas tree at S&R a week later (the subject of my second holiday rant coming up soon) I would have boxed up an 8 foot tree and checked it in as baggage if I could figure out how to get it to Heathrow airport! :) After the 14 hour flight home, the wreaths were virtually unscathed and happy as can be. We spritzed them with water, and put them into a refrigerator for another week before we took them out to decorate them. They look wonderful and smell great. Will announce winner of this raffle prize at a later date along with other winners. Stay tuned for other prizes and more holiday and European posts!