I got back yesterday morning from 4 days in Tasmania. Well 5 I guess if you count the fact I arrived Friday night about 10pm, finally. The whole trip was bounded by terrible flights that just cocked up all the time. The first flight from Napier to Auckland went fine. Then I got on the plane to fly to Melbourne and we sat on the tarmac for what turned out to be about two and a half hours while they waited for paperwork to say the patch job they'd done to the cargo hold was safe and allowed. That was heaps of fun, just sitting there, waiting and waiting. They bought around icecream and stuff like that, but it didn't really make the wait any better. Eventually we took off and arrived in Melbourne. Because of the huge delay my flight to Hobart was missed and I was booked on another, which meant I had to wait 2 more hours in Melbourne before it departed, except it was really two and a half hours wait again because it was delayed too. So instead of getting into Tasmania at ~5pm or so like Sarah had originally booked me I landed about 10am. Dad was there waiting for me though, which was nice. Thanks Dad.
Saturday I got up early with Dad and went down with him to Salamanca to help him get the parking reading at Parliament house. As part of his Rotary group they park cars in Parliament House on Saturday morning for the market, $5 a pop. It's pretty good value too, so close to the market. It fills up very fast, I hardly had time to force him to wear his high vis jacket which of course he hated. After parking lots of cars and turning lots of people away, I went to visit Chris in the Whittle Ward. I'd like to say it was nice to see him, but of course it wasn't. I mean I'm glad I did see him, the whole time I was there, but it was still very sad to see how fragile, thin and just unwell he is. I'm not going to dwell on it in this entry, I might write another one with my thoughts on that. Anyway we hung out for the day, Chris, Simone and I. It was so hot, 38.7c or something it got up to.
Saturday night Dad and I went out for dinner at Jack Greene's, we both had the 3 sliders options and a Bruny Island IPA. Things have really changed when Bruny Island is making IPAs.
Sunday I got up early and knew what I had to do, run 20km according to my training chart. So off I went along the Waterfront and all the way out to Northgate shopping centre and back. It took a long time and I had to go to the toilet a quarter of the way out, but it went well otherwise. I couldn't remember if a half Marathon was 21km exactly for 21.something, so I ran 22km just to be sure. Turns out it's exactly 21km, so I ran an extra 1km that was unnecessary.
I hung out with Dad for the rest of the morning, we went down to the Retro Cafe for a late breakfast, poor Dad having to listen to me moan and bitch about my legs and running and all that. Then I went to hang out with Chris again for the afternoon, we did a bit of around town walking etc, though lots of was closed. Sunday night Dad and I went to dinner at the Thai place in Salamanca, who's name escapes me at the moment.
Monday was a quiet day really, I briefly saw Chris in the morning but that was it. I went and had breakfast that consisted of a National Pie and a Chocolate Milk. Then I went into town to do a bit of shopping here and there, visited Tasplan to sort out my super transfer, caught up with Rob and Denny for lunch then headed back to Dad's place for the afternoon. Simone's Mum invited me to their place for dinner, so I went around Salamanca for a pint in some of my old haunts before walking down to Simone's parents places for a lovely dinner with them.
Tuesday morning got up and went for a run along the Hobart Rivulet track. Then back and hung out with Chris and Simone for most of the day, until at about 3pm I got a text saying "Your Hobart to Sydney Flight Tomorrow has been cancelled!" and then spent the next couple of hours trying to get hold of Qantas, trying to get Webjet to help etc. Eventually while Auntie Liz and Uncle Brian were visiting Dad's, Qantas rang me out of the blue (and unprompted by my previous attempts to contact them) to tell me my new flight details.
Then I went up to say goodbye to Chris and Simone, which was of course as hard and sad as you can imagine. Dad and I went to Greek for dinner, then off to bed.
Wednesday morning up bright and early, goodbye to Dad as he dropped me back off at Hobart Airport. I had to get on a fecking Jetstar flight where they treat you like cattle. Force you to weigh your bag to get a sticker on it before it's allowed to be taken on the plane etc. Hate hate hate. Got off at Sydney and there was Mother Dearest waiting for me. That was nice. We went and collected my big bag (because Jetstar can't/don't check bags thru) and took the bus over to the Intl Terminal. Went to the Qantas counter to get on my flight, no sir you're flying LATAM. Who? No worries over to the Latam counter, Hi Sir do you realise your flight is 2 and a bit hours delayed? Fuck off no I did not. Over to Qantas to see if I can get on an earlier flight, no sir sorry all sold out just 10 minutes ago ARGH. Back to LATAM to checkin, then lunch with Mum and then hang around the airport for an hour before takeoff.
Get to Auckland and of course have missed my connecting to Napier, as they'd told me I would. Found a Qantas Sales box that was closed but Mike behind the counter still helped me get a hotel, a $30 meal voucher and a shuttle booked. Spent the night in Heartland Airport Hotel. Back out of bed at 5am to get my flight to Napier and finally home in Napier seeing the family again at ~8am on Thursday morning.
PHEW. Made it safe and sound. Back home, shower and go to work.
Then here I am on the couch at 6am because while I was going to go running at 5:30am as I need to, since I haven't run since Tuesday, Beth of course was awake with some vague complaint which meant I couldn't go. Very annoying.
OMG last night we went to say Goodbye to Maggie, her flight out was at 8pm or so. So us 4, plus Holly, Jojo and Isla are around at The Chats. All going well, we're talking in the lounge and the kids are playing in the other room until we hear SCREAMING. Theo McShit Harman has thrown a chair at poor Joseph. Joseph has big bruise on his back rising up rapidly. We don't really know what happened exactly, except that Theo threw a foot stool thing at him. Anyway suffice to say Theodore was in a lot of trouble, we packed up and came home pretty much straight away. No idea what caused it but seesh, I wanted to take BigBae away but Sarah and I talked about it on the way home and agreed that was a step too far, he doesn't see BigBae as a privilege that can be taken away, it's something that he loves and taking it away would be similar to saying We're Taking Daddy Away etc. Gosh I hope Joseph is OK, Sarah texted Holly last night and she said he was fine but still.
Anyway it's 6:15am now, I better get the day started.
Tim
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