Friday 29 January 2010

The Journey

Thursday 28/1/10 - On the plane from Sydney to Christchurch.

So far everything has gone very smoothly, touch wood. It's a long way to New Zealand but the in flight entertainment was excellent, I watched a couple of sit-coms, a bit of Michael McIntyre before he started to irritate me and 4 and a half films (Funny People **, District 9 ****, Julie & Julia ***, Up *** and most of Public Enemies before falling asleep).

On the Singapore to Sydney leg I overheard the woman sat next to me saying she lived near Auckland and I confess that my first thought was that I should befriend her on the off chance that she might offer me a place to stay for a night. I played it cool for the first 5 hours of flight because she had her headphones on and with only a couple of hours to go I started to worry that I might not get my opportunity to persuade this woman that she should start a B&B for me, but then a stroke of luck - she began vomiting with alarming frequency. Fantastic, I had my 'in' because I had to let her out every time she went to dispose of her sick bag and my 'it's no fuss, throw up as many times as you like' face is second to none.

When she turned a healthier shade of green, we got chatting and she was lovely. Her, her husband and several children (I think she mentioned at least 4) had moved to New Zealand from Kent. She had just spent a month with her sister becauase her neice was in Great Ormond Street with a brain... thing, can't remember what it was called but it was the size of a tennis ball and bad for you, if the girl had been older than 3 months then she's be dead but little ones have flexible skulls so hopefully she will recover fully.

Once we had landed Kathy (the friendly green woman) said I was welcome to stay with her family if I wanted (about bloody time) on their dairy farm 2 hours from Auckland and I may well take her up on her offer. I think I quite like travelling.

Memorable blushing moment 1: Looking for an up escalator or stairs back up to the toilets from the departure lounge at Sydney airport, failing to find one and generally walking forwards and backwards in an awkward drunken looking manner watched by a judgemental woman before conceding defeat and getting my phone out to avoid eye contact with judgemental woman.
Memorable blushing moment 2: About 2 minutes after blushing moment 1 I remembered I'd walked past a lift and lifts go up. Now I have a purpose judgemental woman. I strode in to the lift and the doors closed behind me, 'Floor B please' I thought as I pressed button B... nothing happened, I pressed it again and still nothing. Let's try C then... nothing. B & C together... nothing. Bugger. I resigned myself to holding my wee in and pressed A, the doors opened to reveal me to the judgemental lady who stared at me like one might stare at an individual who should not be allowed on a plane without being accompanied by their mental health practitioner. I got my phone out and walked past her with my head down.

No comments:

Post a Comment