Plan B

The day did not go according to plan. I had planned to blip a nice photo from the plane as we flew out of Brisbane, or perhaps a nice shot of the magnificent waterways down the Gold Coast, or maybe even an aerial shot of Sydney. But the best laid plans...

Our Jetstar plane was delayed coming up from Sydney, as were dozens of other flights due to the 100km winds at the airport. So our flight was delayed leaving Brisbane.

I went back down to the Jetstar counter to voice my concern about missing my connections. 'No worries'. I went back down again when it was delayed another half hour. In fact I was up and down to the Jetstar desks, and back through security four times! I got randomly checked for explosives twice. They all began to greet me like an old friend!

Anyway, the 1 hour 17 minutes flight ended up being two hours, due to having to fly round and round above Sydney before we could land. To say we were stressed was an understatement.

However, with a 9:45 flight time, we reckoned we'd still make it. Ran from the plane (not a pretty sight) got the bags in record time, got a taxi to the international terminal and he fair flew over the sleeping policemen (I thought I was on the Fraser Island trip again) and the flight was closed!!!

We were just about bawling at the desk, but the nice people could do nothing. They had held it 40 minutes. They rang up several hotels nearby, but all were full. So... we rang our friend G. Surprise surprise!

So the bonus is...another day in Balmain . And the birthday girls can spend it together.

My emergency blip tonight is of a cute wee girl in front of me on the plane. She was very chatty, which was a bit of nuisance as I was tearing my my hair out and not wanting to chat.

'You look old!' she said to me, not holding back.

'What's your favourite colour?'

'What's your name?'

'Do you know my daddy?'

And this went on for quite a while. Actually, she distracted me from the realisation that we were going to miss the flight.

Bonus day in Balmain!