Then David took another look at his passport stamp, and noticed that the immigration officer stamped "employment prohibited" in barely-readable ink above the normal stamp. Oy vey. It's rather crucial that David be able to work while we're here! And we know he should be able to from everything we read and the prior entry clearance visa he had already gotten.
So David made half a dozen phone calls to the British Home Office and finally established that we needed to go back to Heathrow to get it fixed. Yep, back to Heathrow Airport. So we got on the airport bus and did our recent trip in reverse, but this time at least we had no luggage.
An hour and a half later, we arrived at the airport, managed to find the right desk in the right terminal, and a man from the immigration office came to meet us. He took our passports to the CIO, Chief Immigration Officer, whose name we never heard and face we never saw. It must be top-secret. The man came back not too much later with our corrected passports - there was just a line through the incorrect stamp and the indiscernible signature of the CIO.
The man who helped us was a Sikh and it was fun for me to check out his beard and turban up close and personal. Sikhs may not cut their hair or beards but also must keep them clean and neat at all times. The turban takes care of the hair, but the beard is more complicated, and it looked like he had it somehow elaborately folded and wired down or something. It ended up looking like he had a normal, neat short beard. Very impressive.
Then back to Oxford on the bus, where we did some more wandering around town and sightseeing before heading home. It was nice to spend the evening in after quite a tiring day.
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