Getting there – Sydney & Singapore

Well despite all my lists and planning I was still in a rush to get out the door on time on Thursday, but I made it ok and have only forgotten one minor little thing.  I thought for a while there I’d left my main credit card behind but I found that today so all is well.

Checked in online with Emirates to get to Sydney, had some stressing at the airport worrying about being late and then thinking I’d left the credit card behind, just sat down to enjoy a hot chocolate and try to relax when my name got called to make myself known to staff… crap!  Had my bag split open?  Had I done something wrong on my paperwork?  Didn’t get to finish my hot choc and walked down the far end to my boarding gate only to find they wanted to know if they could move me to another seat to allow a family to sit together!  Relief, but now I’d missed out on my chocolate 🙁

The flight was good, but got held up at customs for ages while they checked the seeds I was bringing over for Mum and ended up confiscating the silverbeet seeds.  Reece and his sister Pauline met me at the airport and took me back to her place for dinner with Reece’s father and his wife Jill.  We played Quiddler then went to bed, next morning Reece and I went shopping at all the outdoorsy shops in Chatswood for more clothes for him, then in the afternoon we all went to the airport to catch our flights to Singapore then on to Heathrow.  Singapore airlines were great, I had preordered vegetarian and vegan meals and they were all delicious.  Singapore airport was pretty cool, we only had an hour there so wandered around the shops and went to the Butterfly Garden which someone at work had told me about.  Unfortunately it was late at night so all the butterflies were sleeping but we could see quite a few of them hanging on the trees and when we go back through it’ll be daytime so we should be able to go in there while they’re all flying around.

The flight from Singapore to Heathrow was horribly long (about 13 hours I think) and I was tired but to make sure I got myself into the right timezone/sleep patterns I watched a movie first before trying to sleep.  Unfortunately didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted but this morning after arriving at Mum and Dad’s I had a nice nap for an hour then had a shower and a caffeine pill and have been ok all day, about to go to bed now at 9.15pm and should be pretty good tomorrow.  When I got to Heathrow the others all got their bags one by one and I was still waiting, finally we could see it was the same few bags going round and round and mine wasn’t there.  A guy came to ask if were ok and I’ve ended up having to lodge a claim/search thing, they were meant to call me today but I haven’t heard from them and they didn’t return my call either.  My travel insurance allows $500 emergency funds for replacing personal items if my bags aren’t returned to me within 12 hours, that’s already gone by and I get more if I still don’t have them after another 72 hours – will definitely need it then as I’ll have to get more warm clothes for going to Poland on Tuesday.  Of course if my bag is never recovered it’s all covered but I’d be gutted if that happened.  Hopefully I will be able to get hold of them tomorrow morning and they’ll tell me it’s on the way to me !  Stay tuned for updates…

Today after lunch we went to Avebury which is like Stonehenge but bigger and better – you don’t have to pay and you can walk right up to the stones too.  Tomorrow morning I’m going to church with Mum and Dad and then we’re off to Bath for the afternoon.  I want to go to the Jane Austen museum and a few other things, see how much I recognise from Georgette Heyer novels although not going to the roman baths as I’ve decided it’s too expensive (£11 which is NZ$24) and I’d rather spend my money on other things.  Might have some photos for you next time.