In case you never knew I was away...
...I'm back.
I spent a ridiculous amount of money on clothes - a certain young lady in Kettering would be proud.
Of necessity I didn't really go anywhere but matildabj, myself and our mother spent a nice couple of days in a hotel for Christmas (if you've seen ghyste's photos of the place she takes her mother to, it was along the same sort of lines, except our bedrooms weren't quite as posh!).
The journey home was reasonably untraumatic, with the exception of my chauffeur driver not showing up to collect me at Stevenage. Before eyebrows rise, if you travel Business class on Etihad you get a complimentary chauffeur for 100 miles. It's very nice - when it works. The company used at the Brisbane end is faultless, unfortunately I can't say the same for the London side. On my outward journey I missed the driver at the airport (he wasn't waiting in the arrivals hall), and when we did meet, he followed his GPS and attempted to drop me off in the centre of a (deserted) retail park, despite me clearly specifying that I wanted to be dropped at Stevenage Railway Station (to pick up the East Coast line to Durham). I eventually had to direct him back to the main road so that we could follow road signs to the station!
On my return journey there was no driver waiting at Stevenage. I attempted to ring the company, but the phone line was constantly engaged. matildabj tried from home, but she couldn't get through either.
The thriftily-minded matildabj suggested taking the train to King's Cross and then getting the tube to Heathrow, but thanks to the aforementioned spending trip, I was completely overburdened with luggage (28 kilos at checkin!) and the thought of dragging it back onto the train and thence onto the tube made me want to cry.
Finally I decided to get a cab - after all, I was planning to pass the costs on to someone else (i.e., the chauffeur company!). I went along to the taxi rank at the station and a very nice driver gave me a ride to Heathrow despite the fact that he had been planning to go home after the fare. It cost me 65 quid and took just over an hour, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
The flight back was uneventful - I didn't get much sleep for reasons I can't really work out, and once home I picked up my cats and engaged in lots of joyful snuggling with small furry mammals.
My lawn looks like a jungle despite the fact that I cut it less than three weeks ago. The almost constant rainfall at present (you may have heard that Queensland is underwater, thankfully where I live is just incredibly wet and not flooded) means that the chance of me mowing in the near future is fairly low, so I might have to get out with the shears and squelch around trying to trim down the worst bits.
matildabj arrives a week on Saturday. Time to make the spare room resemble something other than a junk repository (although thanks to my brother, it at least has proper curtains now).
I spent a ridiculous amount of money on clothes - a certain young lady in Kettering would be proud.
Of necessity I didn't really go anywhere but matildabj, myself and our mother spent a nice couple of days in a hotel for Christmas (if you've seen ghyste's photos of the place she takes her mother to, it was along the same sort of lines, except our bedrooms weren't quite as posh!).
The journey home was reasonably untraumatic, with the exception of my chauffeur driver not showing up to collect me at Stevenage. Before eyebrows rise, if you travel Business class on Etihad you get a complimentary chauffeur for 100 miles. It's very nice - when it works. The company used at the Brisbane end is faultless, unfortunately I can't say the same for the London side. On my outward journey I missed the driver at the airport (he wasn't waiting in the arrivals hall), and when we did meet, he followed his GPS and attempted to drop me off in the centre of a (deserted) retail park, despite me clearly specifying that I wanted to be dropped at Stevenage Railway Station (to pick up the East Coast line to Durham). I eventually had to direct him back to the main road so that we could follow road signs to the station!
On my return journey there was no driver waiting at Stevenage. I attempted to ring the company, but the phone line was constantly engaged. matildabj tried from home, but she couldn't get through either.
The thriftily-minded matildabj suggested taking the train to King's Cross and then getting the tube to Heathrow, but thanks to the aforementioned spending trip, I was completely overburdened with luggage (28 kilos at checkin!) and the thought of dragging it back onto the train and thence onto the tube made me want to cry.
Finally I decided to get a cab - after all, I was planning to pass the costs on to someone else (i.e., the chauffeur company!). I went along to the taxi rank at the station and a very nice driver gave me a ride to Heathrow despite the fact that he had been planning to go home after the fare. It cost me 65 quid and took just over an hour, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
The flight back was uneventful - I didn't get much sleep for reasons I can't really work out, and once home I picked up my cats and engaged in lots of joyful snuggling with small furry mammals.
My lawn looks like a jungle despite the fact that I cut it less than three weeks ago. The almost constant rainfall at present (you may have heard that Queensland is underwater, thankfully where I live is just incredibly wet and not flooded) means that the chance of me mowing in the near future is fairly low, so I might have to get out with the shears and squelch around trying to trim down the worst bits.
matildabj arrives a week on Saturday. Time to make the spare room resemble something other than a junk repository (although thanks to my brother, it at least has proper curtains now).