good-bye lengthy tuesday

Monday 26/05/2008 23:40 NZ time, Auckland International Airport
Hmmm. This time Nicky's "we're on our honeymoon" spiel got us a seat-move at the check-in desk though instead of going forward fourteen rows into the next section as on the way in we've moved forward four rows to the seats the row with the wall in front of them where they fit the shelves for children to be put into. Oh. Goody. One of them's already started wailing. Normally this would be mitigated by the background hum of the engines but they haven't started up yet due to a small delay which we have just been informed was "due to an engineer having to retrieve a seatbelt from down the side of a seat in business class".
An update: they've received a replacement seat belt and it'll take ten minutes to fit then we'll be off. The letters F, F and S spring to mind. Another thing annoying me about business class is that they apparently get a wider selection of films and televisions than everyone else; surely they should spend the flight doing business-related things like thinking (out of boxes), straightening their ties and wearing uncomfortable shoes? They should have a "working parent" business class right next to normal business class so that the memoranda dictated into dictating machines are interrupted and obscured by the sounds of wailing childrens. And a seating system whereby everyone with a loud or grating voice is stuck together in the smelly bit next to the toilets whilst nice quiet people get a nice soundproofed bit to be nice and quiet in with nice unscratched windows to look through and a selection of interesting books to borrow if not sitting at the window instead of having to attempt to enjoy visual entertainments in low-bitrate blocky 4:3 ratio bobbins-O-vision interrupted by frequent flight crew commentaries at a far higher volumes than the soundtrack and into which the wails of childs and drones of drones and codger-confusion-waffling constantly intrude.

They've had their ten minutes (this was originally written in longhand) and we're still on the ground. It's nearly Tuesday already though I was actually hoping that we wouldn't take off until after midnight so that all home-journeying would take place within a single thirty-five-hour-long Tuesday across a range of exciting time-zones. I think getting home and asleep by 23:59 GMT on the same Tuesday might be pushing it but I would hope to at least be on the airport bus. Hopefully at some point I'll get a photograph of something to describe some section of this lengthy day. Hopefully there'll be a spare window-seat on the second leg of the main flight.
Arf. At least people in Business Prémière are very slightly belittled in the event of crashing by the stupid position they have to assume upon hearing BRACE BRACE. Feet on the ottoman, knees against the wall, hands on knees. I suppose they can't lean on the seat in front of them as it's eight feet away. I forgot they had ottomans, too. Ponces.
Well, that was a very very long take-off run. Suspiciously bumpy and rattlesome at the end, too. Run out of way, perhaps? Maybe it went onto the cats' eyes or the paint.
Balls. Too cloudy for a last look at the Sky Tower or Rangitoto on the way out. Just wondering if the HK-London section of this flight will go anywhere near the Himalayan plateau... could be interesting and might even beat the Greenlandish glacier we went over on the way out.

It's odd trying to watch a film when you can see at least six others out of the corners of your eyes of which half have been seen which brings unbidden to mind that section of the plot with each glance. At least my film has Philip Seymour Hoffman in who has just made an helium balloon act. Aha... that's what the motel in Te Anau reminded me of: the shot in No Country for Old Men including One who Used to Be in Northen Exposure when Anton walks from his motel room to the room to which the Mexicans have tracked the money.

Tuesday 27/05/2008 06:00 NZ time but somewhere between Auckland and Hong Kong:
Not entirely sure where we are... last time I checked the flight-path-thing it was somewhere over one of the smaller -nesian islands but the screen was too shite to see exactly where and it was only labelled with a couple of pictograms so shall remain forever unidentified. Still dark outside, anyway. I was going to attempt to try and sleep for a bit but just noticed that my ankles are looking a little bit chubby so shall sit and fidget them for a while seeing as the seatbelt signs prevent me from doing a few little loops of the plebcabins. Nicky has hopefully had a few hours' sleepworth despite the regular squeaks from one of the two babies in front of us. There was also a little bit of snore-rattle from a bloke behind us (but not as dribbly as the guy behind us coming back from Barcelona) but nothing too impingingly loud though the occasional thump against my seat's back seems a little unnecessary.
Hmmm. Films or sleep?
07:15 NZ time:
Weird. For five minutes every child was awake and whining until they all suddenly shut up. There's a woman across the aisle from me who was bleating constantly to the cabin crew for the first two hours of the flight who is now asleep with her mouth gaping open pointing right at me. Perhaps the next time a steward comes round with a big jug of water they could top her up directly rather than filling a new cup to complement the many she has already discarded about the floor.
Silence, child. Four more hours yet and you should be used to it by now. Maybe it's quite happy flying but just doesn't like its mother. BLECH. Thanks to this child and its colleague and their mothers I have had no sleep yet though did get about five minutes' eyes-shut-time.

Oh. Harass-the-staff woman has just said "oahw, she's being very good" about directly-in-front-child. Yes, the chid has squoke less oft than the older child next to it but I wouldn't call it anything like good. The conversation of which this statement was a part (grating even without the content) has now woken said allegedly-good child. Maybe now all three of you could play the SHUT UP game together and take your bottom out of my personal space, especially when your yapping means that you are missing the nice long sunrise occurring out of the window you are lucky enough to be sitting next to. And don't throw things on the floor. STOP POKING IT. You've just woken it up again. Give it back to its mother and sit down before I press your attention button. oh. Good. A third person has joined in. Can't you save it for the transit-stopover thing when it should be light enough for me to glower at you effectively.
Anyone with a right-hand window seat who doesn't have their nose pressed against the glass doesn't deserve to have eyes, let alone the option to view them.

09:45 NZ time:
Hmmm. Breakfast was nice on the way over. I had my second ever omelette which led me to eat two more over the past three weeks. On this flight they have pancakes which would have been acceptable alone but which become wrong when covered in syrups and other sweet-sticky liquid things. Hopefully there'll be a big basket of apples available as at the last stopover.
12:45 NZ time, 06:45 Hong Kong time, Hong Kong Airport:
Why is everyone so keen to go to the bog just before we start to descend?
07:50 HK time, Hong Kong Airport:
Hmmm. Maybe it was only because they wouldn't let us out of a smallish transit lounge on the outbound LAX stopover that they fed and watered and coffee-ed us up; although we had bugger all time we had the full run of the departure area at Hong Kong so could have bought foods and waters to combat the 22 degrees if we really wanted. I was idly wondering about finding a cashpoint to see what sort of money it gave out but just waited about instead even though our alleged twenty-minute wait lengthened into an hour. At least there was a reasonable view of the terrifyingly densely-packed housing blocks against the cloudy tree-covered mountains to make up for the absence of all but a tiny chink of view of the approach through the distant window-seats.
09:20 HK time, 03:30 BST, Hong Kong Airport:
Aha. The screamiest of the two next-row-forward children has been replaced by a better-behaved-looking example which has so far been seen but not heard.
05:15 BST, location unknown:
I'm not going to look at the Airshow to see where we are for this bit of the flight as it'll just irritate me that I can't see it from my seat and that the people at the window seats have the blinds closed.
Hurrah for the second series of Flight of the Conchords. The shortish episodes fit nicely between the various interruptions imposed by the various happenings of the flight of the Boeing 747-400. I was going to watch some LotR now that I can play spot-the-scenery for the couple of places to which we have now been although in the case of Arrowtown/Bruinen I didn't read about the use thereof until after visiting and walking around it. Such a visual film is probably best left for watching at a decent resolution.
05:50 BST:
The only problem about switching to GMT is that whilst it makes it very easy to see (a) how much longer this bit of the flight will last and (b) how long until we get home it slightly obfuscates (c) or the length of time since I woke up at 06:30 Auckland time on Monday since which I have not yet slept.
06:30 BST:
Heavens. I thought those flight-sleep eye-mask things looked silly; having a flight-sleep leg-blanket draped over the head or a combination of the complementary pillow and an headscarf are probably less flattering. Even when the sleep-masks are a matching pair worn by couple with exactly the same expressions (who have probably been tramping about in matching his'n'hers walking boots and anoraks for a couple of weeks). Bugger: the scarf-pillow combo (staff-harassing-woman) has just disassembled itself before a picture could be taken.
08:30 BST:
Small ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches and miniature tubs of cookies & cream flavour Häagen-Dazs are not to be sniffed at but at 08:30 in the morning? It makes slightly more sense if taken at Hong Kong-equivalent time but I thought these things would work to the time of the destination. Can't be good for jetlag if they keep to the schedule of the source country until touchdown.
12:15 BST:
I've now been awake for about forty hours but feel like it's mid-afternoon though I'm expecting some severe lethargy to strike at about 16:00 when my brain should be expecting to be deepliest asleep. I'm sure that Heathrow will be nice and muggy and smoggy to make attempting to sleep in it impossible.
14:50 BST, Heathrow Airport:
Cool... the Authoratahs have just boarded the aircraft and left with an handcuffed miscreant in tow. I noticed and snapped him in Hong Kong along with his assumed colleague due to the unnecessary nature of their hoodies' rear slogans and particularly the tucked-into-boots look to the trousers of the taller (arrested) bloke. We heard or saw no kerfuffle during the flight on our round-the-cabin leg-stretching shuffles so we have no idea what the reason was and can merely speculate as the staff wouldn't know or couldn't say.
Our route back into the depths of the airport does seem quite familiar despite the speed of our previous passage through in the other direction on the outbound leg. I expected Heathrow to be much larger and grander than the other smaller London airports but the split-terminal thing seems to have generated sprawl rather than a single large-feeling entity. Even single buildings feel very odd-bit-tagged-on unless that's an affect generated by looping round partitions and doubling back and looping around to get through the various desks we have to pass in order to get landside in order to get just a little bit of air even if it's manky London airport air; far better than the muggy gloop inside the building.
17:40 BST:
After a relatively quick and painless (and luckily free) train to T4 and back so that Nicky could get a shower it turns out that T1 had showers all along in the departures floor. At least the extra journey added a train to the buses and aircraft already used today.
19:30 BST:
I'd been feeling relatively normal despite the increasing amount of time since proper sleep (getting to stand up and walk around and drink some cold, fresh water helps) but after having eaten a few mouthsful of food I'm suddenly feeling very spaced. I expect it's my insides stealing blood from my poor befuddled brain; lucky I'm sitting down and don't have to do anything more mentally taxing than remember where we've been and give vaguely intelligible responses to my sister's questions. At least I feel like I could go to sleep at will which will come in handy later. I'm glad there's only one more time-deadline remaining as I keep losing track of how long we have until the alleged boarding time. Damn good job we're going straight back to Edinburgh and buses and taxis home rather and that we don't have to do anything like pick up a car from an airport parking facility.
20:50 BST:
We're supposed to be waiting at gate 8 but this isn't strictly possible seeing as there are areas marked 8a to 8g but no specific plain 8. Still woozy but a little less disoriented now that the food's been gone a while. When I popped to the shop for some airside water I was struck by a sudden urge to get some chocolate to compare the taste to the strange taste of NZ Cadbury products so have some nice Smarties to nibble at whilst I read the newspaper which I bought to get a free bottle of water whilst my laptop and mobile recharge on the nice plugs in the section of seats we though best represented Gate 8 and which are nice and close to the obviously-ours BMI-labelled A319 we can see out of the window.
21:55 BST:
Sounds have been sounding slightly strange for a while (obviously not helped by the attenuation caused by twenty-four hours of engine drone earlier on) and it's definitely getting harder to pick out and concentrate on particular noises; the cotton-wool-brain feeling is returning along with an urge to sleep rather than just the impression that I could if I tried.
22:30 BST, somewhere above Britain:
A window seat this time but there's not much to see out of it. I'm trying to continue typing-up some of the handwritten travel-waffle but I keep dropping off and waking up a few seconds or minutes later to a lineful of spaces or random characters where my hand has rested on the keyboard. I've dropped my pen down the side of the seat somewhere, too. The water is helping but I certainly couldn't do anything mentally taxing at the moment. I was going to try doing the SuDoKu in the newspaper but not having a pen rules that out.

22:50 BST, Edinburgh airport:
It's good to see the orange orange lights of home though we're either too far over or I was too half-asleep to notice the dark blobbiness of Arthur's Seat which I usually try and look out for when arriving home though we might have approached from a funny direction. Can't see the bridges anywhere either though the road and control tower confirm this as Edinburgh. Must make a concerted effort to not forget any laptops or cameras when disembarking.
23:05 BST:
It's always nice to find that your luggage has had a correctly-routed thirty-six hours though we knew the bags had at least come as far as London when Nicky spotted them inside a sort of partitioned-off cupboard-space a little bit away from the Heathrow baggage reclaim area. I still had to check inside the pockets of mine to make sure it was mine as it's only been mine for a month and I was half-looking for the older lighter blue of my Berghaus. My souvenir lump of bungee cord reassured me.
Arriving into Edinburgh late at night is never the best time to see any kind of official airport staff but we've just waltzed out of the building through absolutely zero customs with bags that were checked in in Auckland and could contain anything. Parrots. Possums. Fern seeds. Fair enough that we've come off an internal flight but that should surely have meant that we should have gone through customs at Heathrow as we thought we had to do at Auckland on the way in before connecting to Christchurch. Oh well. One day this technique may come in handy.
23:25 BST:
Managed a little more transcription on the bus into the city despite meaning to spend the time looking out of the window to see what's changed. At least the rain is familiar.

23:50 BST, Edinburgh:
Teeth brushed. Gas turned back on. Pile of post collected.
Time (after fifty-two hours' wakefulness and thirty-five hours' travel) to sleep.