Father, why weepest thou ?

June 7, 2013

There are some days when you should really stay in bed lest Mike Harding's prophesy of dire prognostications will befall thee comes true.  Today was one of those days.  If you don't know Mike Harding by the way you will either love or hate him.  I first heard him at a concert in in University days, but your probably need to know Lancashire and its dialect to really understand him.

So the day started badly when I got up an hour early: confusion over if I had or had not reset the time from Hong Kong.  Either way I got it wrong (which is rare for me) and ended up with 15 minutes of panic that I might miss the flight before I realised the folly of my ways.  I then had to send very apologetic texts to rescind the where is my minibus ones I had sent earlier!  The Airport and flight were OK.  I didn't get upgraded but the exit row was all mine and everything worked, but after I got off the plane in Singapore things started to go wrong again.

Firstly I bought a new camera.  A combined Christmas, Birthday and Graduation present for my daughter.  She wanted something small, high quality and easy to carry.  While I take landscapes her instincts are more ethnographic and immediate.  So after consultation we settled on a Sony RX100 which has some of the best reviews and a very large image sensor.   I got agreement to my buying it and using it over two weekends on Oz.  That meant I didn't have to carry my Nikon 7000 or rely on the iPhone.

That went well and I settled in the BA Lounge for a few hours.  I thought about unpacking it but decided to leave that for the plane.  With 45 minutes to go before the flight left I packed up, hooked the plastic bag to the roller bag and went down an escalator and across the corridor to a chemist; less than three minutes in total.   I then turned around and the plastic bag had vanished.   I retraced my short route, asked people and checked the lounge but it was gone and I had to get the flight.   I sent a note to Dawn to check lost property next week but it could well have been stolen.

That unsettled me on the plane and BA is uncomfortable enough even in club class so I slept fretfully, maybe an hour at most. It didn't help that I got the full throated and are you the diabetic meal again compounded by the would you like sugar in your coffee, oh no of course you can't treatment.  As we approached Sydney the pilot came on and told us that the winds were marginally on the limit of safety but we would probably be able to land.  To be honest I don't know why she did that, there was no need to know and it created some panic.  As we got closer the wind increased and we went into a holding pattern up and down the coast of New South Wales waiting for the wind to drop or 0600 when the curfew on the Southern Runway comes off.  

The Wind did not relent so we landed late and I was now worried.  I had to clear customs and move between the international and domestic terminal to get an 0800 flight to Melbourne and not on a One World Airline.  We then had to wait 15 minutes for the jet bridge and as I started to exit the plane my name was read out.  One of those dreaded announcements, and I was told that my bags were missing.  Well to be precise one was coming in on a Singapore Airlines flight later and the other's location was unknown.  A real pain as I had confirmed in the lounge that the luggage had transferred.  That meant a lot of faffing around filling out reports but I did just make the flight and finally settled into the hotel.  Its now approaching midnight and one bag has finally arrived, the other is still missing in action.

The good news is that Melbourne is COLD, after Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok that is a blessed relief.  But I can't have a a gradely pan o' chips with or without salt.

 

After note: The other bag did arrive on Saturday and the camera turned up in lost property so all things were OK, but I won't have it for the weekend walks.

 

 

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