A strange view

Leave home 3.15pm Monday, arrive at sisters 36 hours later on other side of world.

In between times lots of sleeping/attempting to sleep, a little eating, reading, watching and talking.  I found myself sitting next to another English woman who now lives in New Zealand and who was heading back to the UK to be with her sick father.  She too made a quick decision to make the trip after contact from family in the UK, the main difference between our situations being that she had no valid passport so had to first get to Auckland (or was it Wellington?) to arrange an 'emergency passport'.  That was her headache.  My headache presented itself when I went to check in for the second leg of the journey from Vancouver to London.

"I tried to do the electronic check-in thing but the machine wont take my passport"

"That's OK - we can do it here.  Which flight are you on?"

"Vancouver to London Heathrow"

"And your name?"

"Caroline ......"

She taps a few keys and searches.

"I'm sorry, which flight did you say you were on?  Do you have your ticket?

"Vancouver to London......leaving in a few hours.  Sure - here's my ticket.....

I hand her my schedule with the ticket number.  She taps some more.

"Hmmmmm - it seems the reason I can't find you on this flight is because you're booked to fly tomorrow"

"WHAT?!"

The rest of the conversation confirmed that the booking agent in NZ had failed to factor in the apparent 'flying backwards' across the Pacific, that is, leaving NZ on Monday evening and arriving in Canada at lunchtime on Monday.  Weird, but that's the way the world spins.  The agent had booked me leaving NZ on Monday and leaving Vancouver on Tuesday.  Therein began a calm but determined series of calls to get the NZ agents to fix the blunder so I could fly out as I thought I had been booked to.  To cut a much longer story short, it all worked out and I managed to secure a seat on the plane I had assumed I was booked onto anyway.  I was pleased M was with me as it certainly helped to keep me a bit more calm and reasonable than I may have otherwise been.

Flight was late for boarding and departure by over an hour so we eventually left at around 7.00pm.  A much more tiring flight despite being over 3 hours shorter than the first one.

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F was there to meet me when I arrived in London which was great :)  She really is a gem xx  Went to see mum in hospital as soon as we could after getting to Banbury and spent a few hours with her.  It was a shock seeing her so sick, so weak, so, at times, confused, but it was also lovely to see the old spark of mum shining through every now and again.  I have no idea how the next wee while will pan out but mum's journey is sure to be a lot more challenging than any journey of mine so far.  I'm just pleased to be at home and able to help her, support her, be with her - and F too, who has done pretty much everything to this point on her own.  The next few weeks are sure to be challenging for us all.