Got onto the plane at Melbourne on time at 15:25, flight to Hong Kong was uneventful although I think the seats in economy get smaller each year.
Arrived at Hong Kong at 21:45 local time and the flight to London was leaving at 01:40 so had 4 hours to kill. I’d deliberately not slept on the way because I wanted to be tired for the long leg to London, and was also well fed on the plane so didn’t need to eat. 4 hours is just too long – I watched some stuff on the tablet, wandered around the airport and poked around in a few shops but didn’t buy anything and generally got bored. At least there were plenty of charging places for the gadgets, and free wifi.
Eventually boarded the plane, it was full up and no opportunity to grab some empty seats.
Settled in and started to snooze. Woke up and wondered why we still hadn’t moved, and it was 30 minutes after the scheduled time, and lots of people were standing up. This didn’t look good. No announcement until about an hour had passed. The captain said a mother and child had boarded and the child was sick and vomiting. The pilot contacted the duty manager who contacted the company medical officer who said he shouldn’t fly with the sick kid. The problem was that the mother refused to get off. She was surrounded by cabin crew trying to persuade her that the flight couldn’t leave with her and the kid on board, but she refused. Eventually the Hong Kong police were called and persuaded her to leave.
We took off an hour late, and I put in some ear plugs, put on an eye mask, reclined the seat and settled in again. By the way, the airline definition of the word ‘recline’ does not mean the same as my definition.The plane taxied so long I thought we might be driving to London.
Anyway, with all the preparation done I closed my eyes and spent the next 12 hours wide awake. I never sleep well on flights but this was particularly bad – there was a 10 year old girl next to me who insisted on elbowing and kicking me every half hour, plus the regular turbulence which was like someone shaking me awake just as I was about to drift off.
I watched movies and TV shows instead so arrived pretty tired and an hour and a bit late.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get much worse, the pilot said the temperature was 5 degrees. Oh, and we were not at an air bridge so we had to walk outside and get on a bus. But wait, it gets better – the steps that the ground crew delivered with typical British efficiency were the wrong ones, so we had to wait another 15 minutes while they got the right ones delivered. And there was only 1 set so deplaning would take longer than normal. Welcome to England!
Arrived at Hong Kong at 21:45 local time and the flight to London was leaving at 01:40 so had 4 hours to kill. I’d deliberately not slept on the way because I wanted to be tired for the long leg to London, and was also well fed on the plane so didn’t need to eat. 4 hours is just too long – I watched some stuff on the tablet, wandered around the airport and poked around in a few shops but didn’t buy anything and generally got bored. At least there were plenty of charging places for the gadgets, and free wifi.
Eventually boarded the plane, it was full up and no opportunity to grab some empty seats.
Settled in and started to snooze. Woke up and wondered why we still hadn’t moved, and it was 30 minutes after the scheduled time, and lots of people were standing up. This didn’t look good. No announcement until about an hour had passed. The captain said a mother and child had boarded and the child was sick and vomiting. The pilot contacted the duty manager who contacted the company medical officer who said he shouldn’t fly with the sick kid. The problem was that the mother refused to get off. She was surrounded by cabin crew trying to persuade her that the flight couldn’t leave with her and the kid on board, but she refused. Eventually the Hong Kong police were called and persuaded her to leave.
We took off an hour late, and I put in some ear plugs, put on an eye mask, reclined the seat and settled in again. By the way, the airline definition of the word ‘recline’ does not mean the same as my definition.The plane taxied so long I thought we might be driving to London.
Anyway, with all the preparation done I closed my eyes and spent the next 12 hours wide awake. I never sleep well on flights but this was particularly bad – there was a 10 year old girl next to me who insisted on elbowing and kicking me every half hour, plus the regular turbulence which was like someone shaking me awake just as I was about to drift off.
I watched movies and TV shows instead so arrived pretty tired and an hour and a bit late.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get much worse, the pilot said the temperature was 5 degrees. Oh, and we were not at an air bridge so we had to walk outside and get on a bus. But wait, it gets better – the steps that the ground crew delivered with typical British efficiency were the wrong ones, so we had to wait another 15 minutes while they got the right ones delivered. And there was only 1 set so deplaning would take longer than normal. Welcome to England!
Trudged through the airport in a daze and met a huge queue at immigration, signs proclaiming that e-passport readers were ‘coming soon!’. Thankfully the queue kept moving and it wasn’t too long before I was through, then onto customs. I always go through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel because I always have nothing to declare – but I always feel as if I have half a kilo of heroin on me and will get stopped. This time I had nothing to worry about because the customs staff were doing a stand-up job of defending the realm by all being on a tea break or something because it was empty.
Went outside to be greeted by my brother who had very generously got up at 05:00 and driven for 90 minutes to pick me up, waited around while I was delayed and then drove me back to my parents’ house. The weather was dull, overcast, rainy and about 8C.
Finally arrived at my parents’ house about 30 hours after leaving Melbourne and was greeted with the traditional cup of tea. Decided to go out for a coffee to get a bit of fresh air and also had lunch (chicken sandwich)
.I managed to stay awake until around 20:00 through dinner with my mum, dad, brother, sister-in-law and niece but then finally had to admit defeat and went to bed.
Not sure what’s happening tomorrow.
.I managed to stay awake until around 20:00 through dinner with my mum, dad, brother, sister-in-law and niece but then finally had to admit defeat and went to bed.
Not sure what’s happening tomorrow.