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The Happy Return
May. 30th, 2004 09:20 pmKerri was due to arrive at Canberra Airport at 0905, and John to attend a Magic tournament in town starting at 0930. In order to cater for flight delays, we dropped John off a few minutes before nine a block or so away from the games shop and headed out to the airport. Nice having an airport five minutes' drive away.
A 737 was sliding in as we approached. Probably Kerri's plane, as we saw that her flight had landed already when we checked the screens inside. A few minutes to drop off a book - Arthur Hailey's Airport - and then there she was, clutching a bag full of duty-free grog. Her carry on luggage had swollen to the point where it was no-longer carry-on size (it has one of those expandable zip things that let you cram a few more goodies in), so we waited for that to arrive and headed home, listening to travellers tales. Downloaded her photographs from the trip - Uppsala has a few interesting old buildings and looks like a pleasant green place in late spring. Goodies were unwrapped for the kids, but my present was the small woman sitting next to me.
Very glad to have her back home after a successful trip. Apparently business or first class is the way to go - if someone else is paying the bill.
I thought she'd be exhausted - two sets of jet-lag in a week - but apparently she had a reasonable amount of sleep on the plane. Last time I tried anything similar, on a train trip up to Brisbane, I was wrecked after a night trying to sleep in an upright position. I sleep on my side, so there was no way I could get comfortable long enough to drop off. But Kerri sleeps on her back and that makes all the difference.
Went into town to collect young John around four. He was busy with his tournament, having a grand time and the staff assured me that this was the last round for the day and it wouldn't be too much longer. I waited in the bookshop a few doors down and emerged fifteen minutes later and three books heavier to find the session still in swing. Settled down to read on one of the benches outside. The sun went down, the shop closed its doors and I was left, with a few other loitering parents. Gave up after a while and had a cappucino in the Lebanese fast food shop opposite, and of course barely had time to enjoy the froth before a flood of teenage geeks spilled out.
Three books. Another Wrox book Beginning Visual Basic.NET - yet another thick square computer book, but this one was on special, and it covers a lot of the new stuff in a straightforward, no-nonsense fashion. The advanced books I have assume a level of knowledge of some of the basic controls which I don't have, and frankly I found their database coverage somewhat less than satisfactory. Anyway, I'm a sucker for such things. I like having a good refernce book beside me to thumb through. Web pages and on-line help systems are useful in their way, but I'm a book guy. I don't want a VB.Net for Dummies book, but I need something to fill the gap and this one looks good.
Travel Writing by Janet Macdonald - a how to do it book which will turn me into Bill Bryson or Tim Severin. This was interesting and I picked up on some of the problems of my New Zealand book, or at least I had my suspicions confirmed about things I could have done better.
Fodor's London 2002 - a more up to date version of the book I have out of the library, this one including the map which has disappeared from the library copy.
As it turns out, Kerri might not be going to the Paris in September meeting, but there's another one on November. Geneva, I think. I still want to do the London trip, if I can find the money, but I can't say that I think much of finding my way around a wintry London. Have to think about this. The Paris thing would be nice, but realistically all I'd be getting out of it would be four nights accomodation and a few chapters. The Aubrey/Maturin connection is fairly tenuous to boot. Possibly another trip, centred around the nearby battlefields, later on.
Best to get stuck into the Bookcrossing Through OZ project. If I can do that well, then I might be able to find a sponsor for London. We'll see.
Tomorrow is going to be busy. Only one car to drop Kerri off at work and Mary at uni. I've got to arrange repairs on the Ford and an electrician to repair the power here. Probably best if I can find that bloody rat first - I don't want to pay an electrician to scramble around in the crawl space finding the break if I can do it and direct him straight to it.
Working out some details for the Queensland holiday - it'd be great if Kerri could come up for at least part of it.
A 737 was sliding in as we approached. Probably Kerri's plane, as we saw that her flight had landed already when we checked the screens inside. A few minutes to drop off a book - Arthur Hailey's Airport - and then there she was, clutching a bag full of duty-free grog. Her carry on luggage had swollen to the point where it was no-longer carry-on size (it has one of those expandable zip things that let you cram a few more goodies in), so we waited for that to arrive and headed home, listening to travellers tales. Downloaded her photographs from the trip - Uppsala has a few interesting old buildings and looks like a pleasant green place in late spring. Goodies were unwrapped for the kids, but my present was the small woman sitting next to me.
Very glad to have her back home after a successful trip. Apparently business or first class is the way to go - if someone else is paying the bill.
I thought she'd be exhausted - two sets of jet-lag in a week - but apparently she had a reasonable amount of sleep on the plane. Last time I tried anything similar, on a train trip up to Brisbane, I was wrecked after a night trying to sleep in an upright position. I sleep on my side, so there was no way I could get comfortable long enough to drop off. But Kerri sleeps on her back and that makes all the difference.
Went into town to collect young John around four. He was busy with his tournament, having a grand time and the staff assured me that this was the last round for the day and it wouldn't be too much longer. I waited in the bookshop a few doors down and emerged fifteen minutes later and three books heavier to find the session still in swing. Settled down to read on one of the benches outside. The sun went down, the shop closed its doors and I was left, with a few other loitering parents. Gave up after a while and had a cappucino in the Lebanese fast food shop opposite, and of course barely had time to enjoy the froth before a flood of teenage geeks spilled out.
Three books. Another Wrox book Beginning Visual Basic.NET - yet another thick square computer book, but this one was on special, and it covers a lot of the new stuff in a straightforward, no-nonsense fashion. The advanced books I have assume a level of knowledge of some of the basic controls which I don't have, and frankly I found their database coverage somewhat less than satisfactory. Anyway, I'm a sucker for such things. I like having a good refernce book beside me to thumb through. Web pages and on-line help systems are useful in their way, but I'm a book guy. I don't want a VB.Net for Dummies book, but I need something to fill the gap and this one looks good.
Travel Writing by Janet Macdonald - a how to do it book which will turn me into Bill Bryson or Tim Severin. This was interesting and I picked up on some of the problems of my New Zealand book, or at least I had my suspicions confirmed about things I could have done better.
Fodor's London 2002 - a more up to date version of the book I have out of the library, this one including the map which has disappeared from the library copy.
As it turns out, Kerri might not be going to the Paris in September meeting, but there's another one on November. Geneva, I think. I still want to do the London trip, if I can find the money, but I can't say that I think much of finding my way around a wintry London. Have to think about this. The Paris thing would be nice, but realistically all I'd be getting out of it would be four nights accomodation and a few chapters. The Aubrey/Maturin connection is fairly tenuous to boot. Possibly another trip, centred around the nearby battlefields, later on.
Best to get stuck into the Bookcrossing Through OZ project. If I can do that well, then I might be able to find a sponsor for London. We'll see.
Tomorrow is going to be busy. Only one car to drop Kerri off at work and Mary at uni. I've got to arrange repairs on the Ford and an electrician to repair the power here. Probably best if I can find that bloody rat first - I don't want to pay an electrician to scramble around in the crawl space finding the break if I can do it and direct him straight to it.
Working out some details for the Queensland holiday - it'd be great if Kerri could come up for at least part of it.
