I am sure most of you will be aware that in Australian and New Zealand parlance the term 'crook' means unwell. I was feeling fine on Saturday as I arrived at Heathrow bang on time at 0725 hrs, picked up the car and drove home arriving at 1100hrs. The dreaded jet lag then hit me around 2100hrs on Saturday evening and I don't remember much about Sunday at all. I still feel a bit 'away with the fairies' this morning (Monday) but at least I'm functioning.
A shame really since all three flights home went well and I even got some sleep but there was one incident that may account for the extreme jet lag.
I left Hobart at 1.00pm local time, 2.00am UK time on Friday 28th March and arrived home at 11.00am UK time on Saturday 29th March, a door-to-door travel time of 23 hours taking into account that Hobart is 11 hours ahead! It was the transit from Flight SQ208 from Melbourne to Singapore that nearly brought me to my knees! I think I had mentioned in a previous post that Singapore Airlines had informed me that the flight from Melbourne had been delayed by 30 minutes. Air Traffic control at Singapore delayed the aircraft by another 30 minutes which meant that by the time I landed my flight to London was already boarding! The Cabin Crew said Ground Crew would be available to assist. They were with "you must hurry your flight is boarding". OK so which Gate and where? It's Gate B5, I arrived at Gate A12 and it's over a kilometre through the main Terminal at Changi Airport. No mechanised assistance in sight. Even the signs said it was a 22- minute walk! I managed it in about 12 minutes but virtually collapsed on to the aircraft, the last aboard, much to the anguish of the cabin crew who quickly sat me down, gathered up and dealt with my carryon baggage and plied with plenty of water.
By then, however, I was very hot and sweaty which was not good in the air-conditioning and I had no time to cool off before take-off. I think that provided perfect conditions for me to pick up some kind of virus and hence the long sleep! But hey I'm fine now and a little note has gone to Singapore asking them to think about older customers and tight transit times!
I left as the trees were turning and falling in Tasmania and arrived to greening trees and hedgerows and the village festooned in Daffodils - "Oh to be in England"!! Didn't some famous poet coin those words?
The incident has not dulled my enjoyment of this Australian adventure and I will now proceed over the next few days to post about the remainder of this journey.
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