Last minute wrinkles are ironed out. Last moment work tasks completed, out of office and voicemail messages recorded. We've checked in. Got our boarding passes sorted. Bad night's sleep so hoping to sleep on the plane.
The Battle of the Packing is joined. Hubby sets his suitcase and carry on case on his side of the bed. I have arrayed similar on mine. Slow and easily distracted I go over and over the essentials leaving showering and dressing to the last minute so we stay fresh as long as possible during the journey. Message friends. Laugh. Reminisce.
Hubby lists a few things and among them is his passport and where he's put it. Ah, yes, I was forgetting that. Bit of an oversight that. Hubby's on fire, he's got his almost done and wandered downstairs. I look over and see his bags overflowing. Hmmm. How are we going to fit souvenir blankets and bulky woollens in that, I think to myself. Hubby's not known for his packing mastery. I inspect. 3 pairs of really heavy shoes and his supportive house flip flops. Battle is joined.
"You don't need 3 pairs of shoes!" "Yes, I do!" he replies. "What if my shoes get dirty?" Of course he needs his current pair of every day shoes, his old pair of every day shoes a nice pair of shoes for going out. Totally a no brainer. Note to self: I could use these shoes for my weight workout. I carefully repack to make them fit.
"You don't need 3 pairs of shoes!" "Yes, I do!" he replies. "What if my shoes get dirty?" Of course he needs his current pair of every day shoes, his old pair of every day shoes a nice pair of shoes for going out. Totally a no brainer. Note to self: I could use these shoes for my weight workout. I carefully repack to make them fit.
"Why have you packed panty liners?" I yell down over the void. "They're for you." They weigh nearly nothing but they can go. That's thoughtful, but FFS when have I ever asked him if he's carrying some panty liners I can borrow.
I wonder what's in this little black zipper case. I unzip. WTF! It's the (very unwelcome) electric shaver I bought him as a joke in the mid 1990s. He thought he would surprise me. That birthday anecdote has been getting quite a bit of airing recently. Well, he still can. I WILL be surprised if he uses that bloody thing for more than a day or two in our four week trip. He wins again.
In the end I cull only the shorts, which I'm confident he won't need in Ireland and northern England in September and October, and one of the merinomink jumpers. Rearranged to remove the gaps between items there's room for at least a couple of woollen souvenirs.
I blog. I check the time. Decide to shower. Maybe that will perk me up a bit.
We've no snacks for the flight. It's a long long flight over 23 hours and then we have roughly another 4 hours to Dublin.
At the allotted time, Son-in-law 1 pops around and he and Grandson load our luggage in the back of the Prado. It's such a joy to see Gson modelling himself on his, most excellent, father. We pop around to say farewells to the girls. Hubby of course expresses his anxiety about not having snacks for the flight. Donations from the NevCot pantry are duly offered. Soon enough we're back in the car and I'm realising I've left without my laptop. Oops. As we drive back home, I check the train timetable again. Trackwork. WTF. But I checked not that long ago and there was nothing. Change of plans. SIL1 will take the kids to the school fair while D1 drives us to the airport. Deal. This turns out to be a good thing as we were wanting to talk about some important things that have been going on for her. Traffic was fine and we had a lovely chat to the friendly Qantas lady who was manning the BA bag drop desk. Fast Forward.....we're heading through one of the many face recognition stations involved in getting to our destination. I go first. No probs. Hubby steps up with some trepidation. These devices aren't that great at recognising him. He's done this before so he's less puzzled than on past occasions but he doesn't know where he's supposed to look. I wish I had a video camera trained on him because from where I'm standing his eyes are rolling around looking like some sort of horror movie predator.
As we move on through the security screening, I step up to take my turn, random belongings in carry on bag, laptop in its own tray. Neck pillow and raincoat in the next tray, carry on baggage on the rollers facing the right way...the Border Force operative whose turn it is to help people get their sorry selves organised compliments me on my efficiency. "You've travelled before haven't you. I can tell." For such a trivial achievement I must say felt rather chuffed at the compliment.
Fast forward....we're on the flight. I get stuck right in and watch British Made: All is True. All is boring and pointless. Kenneth Branagh. Should have known. What is next? Tolkien. We'd wanted to see that when it was showing at our favourite cinema but didn't get a chance. It takes me a while as I slept at intervals throughout, no fault of the movie itself, it was very interesting. The in flight food wasn't as nice as we've had before on BA. I selected window seat and I'm glad of it and get a pretty decent amount of sleep all things considered. I can feel my knee getting the shits about the whacky angle my legs need to adopt to avoid the obstacles of the chair in front.
I'm in pretty good nick when we touch down for our refuelling stop in Singapore. Here we have a highlight of our journey so far. The toilets are GREAT! The seat senses when you stand up and flushes automatically. No germy buttons. Hubby tells me that you need to be careful not to lean back or the wash function gives you a bit of a surprise! The cleaner looked a bit astonished when I returned with my camera!
Back on board we have a spare seat next to Hubby due to a malfunctioning entertainment system. Yippee! Another 13 hours, it's dark now so my blind stays up. Clear skies enable me to periodically watch the web of lights below as we track across the middle east, Azerbaijan and Romania. The tracery of lights intensifies as we cross Europe nearing London, now labelled in the distance on our flight path. At one point I think of bombing raids over the continent. We've a full moon tonight and the light shines on the lakes below, beams forming a moving halo of brilliant silver that moves across and around the edges of the water. Wow!! Seriously.WOW!
With only a few hours remaining I resort to watching my downloaded Netflix - newly released as I was preparing for departure I downloaded Unbelievable in its entirety. It's a beauty.
It's more of the usual transiting through Heathrow. The only moment of puzzlement I feel is that I feel no puzzlement navigating to where we need to be. It is SO good to be walking around. We did our in flight exercises regularly but my knee seriously hates long haul so I'm less than comfy on the walking front. The layover timing is just about perfect.
It's grey and light drizzle in Dublin. It's down the stairs and across the tarmac to the terminal building. There's stairs but my knee demands I take the lift. Then it's the long airport walks. This time though, I notice two things: 1. why have the airports in hot destinations (eg Singapore and Darwin) carpeted their terminal buildings and walkways, where cooler climates have (sensibly) used a hard surface that's more luggage wheel friendly? 2. We walk along what would be a fairly industrial corridor but there's some photographs and the walls are coloured and there's patterns printed on the glass windows. There's a plane among it all that looks very familiar but I walk on among the crowd. Then a plaque. I see the words "Southern Cross" ... hang on... wait a minute. "Southern Cross" will always get an Aussie's attention. I stop to read. We set out from Kingsford Smith Airport and have arrived in Dublin to an art installation commemorating the famous flight of the Southern Cross by Charles Kingsford Smith which departed from Ireland.
We head for W H Smith to get a local SIM. This option turns out to be pretty shitty. A truly crap plan for a lot of money. I almost turn and leave in disgust. Then mulling it over I figure we'll buy one for me and get a better plan for Hubby later. Trouble is, without connectivity we 1. Won't know where to go to get a better plan 2. Even if I'd done better research and had the information of where is best to go, we wouldn't find it. We've travelled to the northern hemisphere enough to know that we couldn't find our way to the exit without google maps keeping us on the right path. Hemisphere disorientation is extreme for us. Convenience is king.
We toy with just getting a cab, but in the end we end up on the airport express as I had planned, for which we just pay for a single journey at the little manned hut by the departure point. The young lady selling us the tickets marks our stop for us on the brochure and it's all simplicity from there. Easy to wheel our luggage over to the Temple Bar Hotel and the rain holds off. The check in staff are very helpful and we drop the bags and head out for a look about.
At the allotted time, Son-in-law 1 pops around and he and Grandson load our luggage in the back of the Prado. It's such a joy to see Gson modelling himself on his, most excellent, father. We pop around to say farewells to the girls. Hubby of course expresses his anxiety about not having snacks for the flight. Donations from the NevCot pantry are duly offered. Soon enough we're back in the car and I'm realising I've left without my laptop. Oops. As we drive back home, I check the train timetable again. Trackwork. WTF. But I checked not that long ago and there was nothing. Change of plans. SIL1 will take the kids to the school fair while D1 drives us to the airport. Deal. This turns out to be a good thing as we were wanting to talk about some important things that have been going on for her. Traffic was fine and we had a lovely chat to the friendly Qantas lady who was manning the BA bag drop desk. Fast Forward.....we're heading through one of the many face recognition stations involved in getting to our destination. I go first. No probs. Hubby steps up with some trepidation. These devices aren't that great at recognising him. He's done this before so he's less puzzled than on past occasions but he doesn't know where he's supposed to look. I wish I had a video camera trained on him because from where I'm standing his eyes are rolling around looking like some sort of horror movie predator.
As we move on through the security screening, I step up to take my turn, random belongings in carry on bag, laptop in its own tray. Neck pillow and raincoat in the next tray, carry on baggage on the rollers facing the right way...the Border Force operative whose turn it is to help people get their sorry selves organised compliments me on my efficiency. "You've travelled before haven't you. I can tell." For such a trivial achievement I must say felt rather chuffed at the compliment.
Fast forward....we're on the flight. I get stuck right in and watch British Made: All is True. All is boring and pointless. Kenneth Branagh. Should have known. What is next? Tolkien. We'd wanted to see that when it was showing at our favourite cinema but didn't get a chance. It takes me a while as I slept at intervals throughout, no fault of the movie itself, it was very interesting. The in flight food wasn't as nice as we've had before on BA. I selected window seat and I'm glad of it and get a pretty decent amount of sleep all things considered. I can feel my knee getting the shits about the whacky angle my legs need to adopt to avoid the obstacles of the chair in front.
I'm in pretty good nick when we touch down for our refuelling stop in Singapore. Here we have a highlight of our journey so far. The toilets are GREAT! The seat senses when you stand up and flushes automatically. No germy buttons. Hubby tells me that you need to be careful not to lean back or the wash function gives you a bit of a surprise! The cleaner looked a bit astonished when I returned with my camera!
It's more of the usual transiting through Heathrow. The only moment of puzzlement I feel is that I feel no puzzlement navigating to where we need to be. It is SO good to be walking around. We did our in flight exercises regularly but my knee seriously hates long haul so I'm less than comfy on the walking front. The layover timing is just about perfect.
We head for W H Smith to get a local SIM. This option turns out to be pretty shitty. A truly crap plan for a lot of money. I almost turn and leave in disgust. Then mulling it over I figure we'll buy one for me and get a better plan for Hubby later. Trouble is, without connectivity we 1. Won't know where to go to get a better plan 2. Even if I'd done better research and had the information of where is best to go, we wouldn't find it. We've travelled to the northern hemisphere enough to know that we couldn't find our way to the exit without google maps keeping us on the right path. Hemisphere disorientation is extreme for us. Convenience is king.
We toy with just getting a cab, but in the end we end up on the airport express as I had planned, for which we just pay for a single journey at the little manned hut by the departure point. The young lady selling us the tickets marks our stop for us on the brochure and it's all simplicity from there. Easy to wheel our luggage over to the Temple Bar Hotel and the rain holds off. The check in staff are very helpful and we drop the bags and head out for a look about.
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