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Friday, March 16, 2012

This time I am being really careful


Vienna and Monika today
I have been neglecting my blog – and blog reading  - for the last few days because I have been involved in a few exciting projects.

First there is the preparation for Spring.

This involves unwrapping the dead plants from the failed winter protection, re-installing the cat door and putting cushions outside for the cats to lie on.

These will not be as cosy as my keyboard where they have been lying all winter - but will have to do.

The most exciting thing has been my annual cocking up of our home leave.

Rozalin booked our international flights for us  and I had to do the peripheral things like booking accommodation, internal flights and rental cars.

This is always a traumatic experience as I am just not good at coordinating  dates and times and invariably there are parts of the trip that suffer from  shoddy workmanship.

It’s not for want of trying - but I just have no skills at this sort of thing.

I have had some fabulous cockups – the most memorable being booking a flight from Paris to London – to arrive in London the day after our flight to Australia had left.

We discovered this a week before the event and of course our tickets could not be changed so we had to buy new tickets at four times the original cost that we had paid six months previously.

This time I have been very careful. We shall see.

8 comments:

  1. Nice picture!

    I haven't had much to write about either. I do have a gigantic mess to change a hot water heater today and the renters are probably going to be happy in an un way about that. But they didn't let me know anything until late yesterday after everything was closed and I was tired. Hold it, I'm always tired. Make that, eXtra tired last night.

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  2. I'd suggest you scan all your tickets and publish them on your blog. Add your bank account and password, and we'll make sure all goes swell.

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  3. I like Merisis's suggestion - great idea and that way we can help you as well !!!

    When planning holidays I normally do it with Al so at least one of us should pick up something that is wrong (that is the idea anyway !!) but if you publish your tickets at least you will have some other eyes checking to make sure you don't leave somewhere before you arrive !!

    Have a great weekend.
    Me

    PS - love the view !

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  4. Can you put your life in the hands of a travel agent?

    I am currently trying to find a route from Victoria to Qld - unfortunately NSW is underwater.
    Maybe we can go via SA and NT?

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  5. An alternative approach to visiting Australia would be to find an old ship to arrive by, dressed in the fashion of the 1700's, and pretend to discover the place all over again. Then go around making proclamations, "I claim this land for her majesty of ______!!!" -and then pick a country. In the year 1997 I used this technique (somewhat) to pick my lab bench as a research chemist when I changed job locations. I noticed that the size, shapes and arrangement of all the lab benches roughly resembled Europe, so I said, "I claim this bench for Spain!" - since it was the bench in the Iberian peninsula (southwest corner) of the large room. For the neXt decade or so I would refer to all bench location by their European equivalency, such as, "Oh, your bottle of sodium hydroxide is over there by Paris."

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  6. esb: My goodness you change hot water heaters? You curably are a good man to have a round the house. I know about tired - and I do nothing at all.

    Merisi: Sure - and I trust you completely.

    Me: We always have two sets of eyes - but both are a bit dumb for travel things.

    freefalling: Actually its only the little bits on the side that need doing - the rest is done by an agent. I am just not good at it.

    esb: I am not sure the Aborigines could cope with a second invasion. I would probably be speared.

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  7. Must be a traumatic experience for you. Why not ask Rozalin to do it all?

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  8. I miss Macau: She is much too busy looking after Cate.

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