Life with the Lusks

My apologies to Canned Heat circa 1960 something,  but when thinking of a header this song came to mind.

Two days spent travelling is not easy but I try and make it as pleasant as I can and not worry too much about sleep lost never to be found again or the fact that two days are taken from our lives.  I look on travel as one big adventure,  on the first leg, from Glasgow to Dubai, we were sitting next to a Tibetan Nun,  she was travelling to Bangalore to teach English as a second language and was only going to receive food and board as payment.  She came from Glasgow and had been visiting her mother,  I would say she was about 50/60 and wore the customery red robes.  Such an interesting woman,  and such dedication to spend her life helping others.

Dubai Airport is one huge area,  very busy, beautiful and rich.  We had 7 hours to pass here and as we are not in the habit of spending money on frivolous things and anyway you are not allowed anything liquid over 100ml on board buying gin or whisky here was out of the question.  There are loungers about for putting your feet up but needless to say they were all taken.  Also we could have paid 31 GBP each for 4 hours in a Lounge but decided against that.   So we sat and had coffee, had something to eat,  walked around, had more coffee and walked around some more.  The time passed, I'll not say fast enough, but it passed.  On to our next leg.

Dubai to Bangkok,  we were sitting next to a Muslim Lady,  Swedish by nationality and whose husband was a doctor in Newcastle, in Sidney, Australia (she would be next to us on the next leg of the flight too).    She either did a lost of praying or she was stretching her spine,  she leaned forward a lot with her head on the seat in front ( I sometimes do this to stetch out my back) but she could sit like this for quite a while.   She was not as talkative as the Nun but still Mr T and myself passed the time of day with her.  Food on this flight was good but I could see Mr T getting a bit fed up with rice and noodles.   No crying children at all on any of the flight so that was a good thing, but what we did notice was a lot of men of a certain age travelling alone (sad I know but I supposed Thailand is well known for a certain type of entertainment).  In Bangkok we got off at gate E8 and walked along walkways for what seemed like about 2 miles and then went upstairs and walked back for about 2 miles went downstairs and got back on the same plane at gate E8.  Made a bit of a faux pas here as I was sure we could buy water as we were already through customs but no the bottle of water and the small orange juice carton had to be binned without being opened.

Bangkok to Sidney, we were staring to feel the drag of time and on this leg I managed to have a good few hours sleep,  this is what I intended and I was now into the NZ zone and it was now night-time there.  Watched the run rise just to the east of Alice Springs and when we landed in Sidney it was after 8am but a grey and rainy day.

Sidney to Christchurch,  this is the quickest leg but the longest in anticipation,  daughter and grandchildren would be waiting and time seemd to stand still.  Got off the plane to an overcast day but pleasantly warm compared to a winter in Scotland.

Big smiles waited for us and grandchildren were not strange at all,  even wee Cora managed a wide grin when we spoke to her.  Stef had roped in her FIL with his car, so that us and our suitcases safely deposited in two cars were on our way.  Mr T with Theo and Ella in one car and Stef, Myself and the 2 younger children in the other car.  Travelled the familar route home,  seeing along the way patches on the road where the earthquake damage had been filled in.  Not much signs of any other damage in the area from the airport, but did notice the road through Belfast suburb had been widened and they were working on this before we left last  time.

SIL arrived home from work just as dinner was ready and we sat down once again in daughter's home to begin our time here with family.