Bet that caught your attention. :-)

Em (18) and Leah (20), have finished Uni for the year, and decided to take-up a rain-checked visit to the UK (and hopefully Europe) for the next 4 weeks. Of course we’ll miss them terribly, especially over Christmas, but they haven’t had the opportunity to visit family and friends up north for a couple of years now. I’m sure they’ll have a ball.

Here they are, checking in at the Virgin Atlantic (which by the way, now flies all the way to Oz) desk this afternoon.

They should land in Hong Kong, where they’re overnighting, sometime in the next couple of hours or so.

Have a great trip girls.

R42

It’s known as the “Silly Season.” Y’know this time of year when your calendar is filled with Christmas Party for this group, and Presentation Day for that one. As a parents of no less than 4 girls, we’ve had our fair share of the latter. This year, however, for the first time ever, we have daughters in 4 different educational institutions.

Usually this doesn’t mean much more than an extra busy schedule. But this week for the first time ever, we had a Presentation Day on the same night at two separate schools. Talk about a dilemma! The only way to choose fairly was to draw names out of a hat. So I found myself being awoken by Charis at sparrowfart on Wednesday morning, bleary eyed, drawing a piece of paper from an old icecream carton…

I drew Amanzi, so got the privilege of watching her play in the Strings Ensemble. You can check her out here, be sure to click through to the YouTube page and turn HD (High Definition) on if you can. In this video, the Ensemble is playing a variation from “Titanic.”

In the second video the Ensemble play a medley from Mission Impossible and James Bond.

Totally apart from seeing and hearing how the Strings Ensemble have improved this year, and Amanzi being part of that, she also awarded one of the Year 7 Strings Scholarships. Usually these are only awarded to one Year 7, and includes all of their music tuition for Year 8. This year, however, two were awarded.

Just while I was watching Amanzi get her Scholarship award, Lucy SMS’d me to let me know that Charis also won an award, for being “A talented and outstanding musician.” So no sports awards in the Lawrence Tribe (like there’s a surprise) :-) But both the younger girls are really enjoying school, and doing so well.

Leah and Em also sent text messages with their brilliant results. All in all, a great week and end to a good year.

R42

I’m disinclined to complain if I can help it. So although this post may come across as whingeing, it really is intended as a way of improving things if at all possible.

I’m currently on Air Vanuatu NF34, en route from Port Vila, after what, I’m sure you’ll agree, was a fantastic wedding anniversary week-end with Lucy. Just as with NF33, the flight we flew to this idyllic hideaway on Thursday, NF34 flies via Melbourne. I.e. this is a Sydney – Port Vila flight, with one stop, Melbourne!!?!?!!

It doesn’t take a genius at navigation, especially nowadays with GPS and Virtual Earth, to figure out that this is a peculiarly obtuse way of getting to Vanuatu. The islands lie pretty much North-East of Sydney, about 3 hours flying time, and Melbourne is about 1hr30 flying time South-West! So the flight has 3 hours added to it, even without the mandatory “clean the aircraft” stop of roughly an hour. If it were a Melbourne-Port Vila flight, with a stop in Sydney, it strikes me that passengers from Melbourne would suffer the inconvenience of the stop in Sydney, but no extra flying time. It also means that Air Vanuatu would save Melbourne-Sydney returns worth of fuel for both NF33 and NF34. The planet would have that much less carbon pollution, and our children would all be saved the horrors of global warming. So I’m guessing there must be a reason for this idiocy! Most likely a commercial one, that costs more than Syd-Mel return, the inconvenience to passengers, not to mention the wear and tear on the aircraft and crew. I just can’t figure out what….

Are aircraft parking fees that prohibitive in Melbourne? Could they just not work out a landing slot for Sydney? (Remember these flights are scheduled about twice or three times per week – so it’s not like they couldn’t change the time to suit a Sydney landing slot)

To add insult to injury, I booked this flight using frequent flyer points. So I was bemusedly prepared to accept a 7 hour trip time, including an hour in Melbourne International Transit. But what I didn’t notice, or figure out, was that today’s return flight, has us transferring to a Qantas domestic, that only leaves at 20:30. We get into Melbourne at 16:40. Yep, Qantas have us waiting (no lounge pass) for four hours because, wait for it, “There are no frequent flyer seats available on the flight.” AND “There are no frequent flyer seats (economy) available on an earlier Qantas flight.” WTF!!! I’m on NF34,and there are easily more than 40 free seats! 40! So we’ll be checking customs and immigration in Melbourne, transferring to Domestic, and hanging around, for 4 hours because of some computer code. This to me is a process/system just gone stupidly wrong. Surely it makes sense to keep us on this flight, in the seats we have, rather than take two “frequent flyer” seats of a Qantas domestic flight, denying some other poor souls who actually want to get to Sydney from Melbourne later this evening… I really can’t see there being 40 people (or 42 with us off the aeroplane) who want to check-in 90 mins early to catch an Air Vanuatu plane from Melbourne International, to fly to Sydney today.

When I pointed this out (not quite so vehemently) in Port Vila, capital of the happiest country on earth, they apologised and mentioned that the flight catering was already done, and as our names weren’t on the list, they would be in the unfortunate situation of not having refreshments for us. In vain I tried to explain that we would go without. In fact getting to Sydney earlier would mean that we didn’t need an extra meal anyway. But to no avail.

So, being a Silver Frequent Flyer, I called Qantas Frequent Flyer and asked if at least they could shift us to an earlier Qantas flight. I’d already been assured that the Qantas domestic flights had “plenty” of availability. Rob, the call centre operator rather tersely pointed out that there were no “frequent flyer” seats available. I explained that I understood this. But surely an empty seat, is an empty seat, and is costing the airline money, at least in opportunity cost. I offered to use points to upgrade to a Business Class Frequent Flyer seat. Rob explained that as I’d commenced travel, he couldn’t change my class of flight, but I should ask the staff upon arrival in Melbourne. I bit my tongue, resisting the temptation to ask why. After all, if the Air Vanuatu staff couldn’t avoid flying A about F to get to Sydney, and they couldn’t do anything on a 3rd empty flight about two passengers already holding ticketed seats, and Rob himself couldn’t magically change the code in the system (because that’s all it would take) to bump us to an earlier flight, what possibly can the staff in Melbourne do? I await with baited breath.

So Air V get the route wrong, at least in convenience and cost, not to mention crew workload. Qantas get it wrong with ensuring maximum ROI on their flights, not to mention customer satisfaction in their frequent flyer program. After all, ask me, do I really feel like a valued customer right now? Perhaps just an irritating annoyance for someone who has to work the centre on a Sunday? Did I feel that they would go out of their way for me, a valued customer, to ensure my satisfaction, or keep my business?

I got it wrong too. I really should’ve paid more attention to the itinerary when I booked it, and tried to change things a week ago before we left. I suspect that I wouldn’t have gotten very far, and perhaps would’ve just been irritated by the 12 hours of travel I was submitting my beloved to in order to dive this week-end. But hey, I totally missed the details on this, and that’s my bad.

On the flight, which I mentioned is hardly full, I’m seated in row 22, out of 29, and took especial note of the lunch trolleys as they trundled past. Food – drink! Superb. Leaving the resort at 9:30 this morning, I was starving by the time lunch was to be served. When the steward did get to my seat, however, he’d run out of trays…. Pardon? I was just assured that you catered for all the passengers on the list in Port Vila, and I’m not even flying with you to Sydney, can’t I have lunch? Please? Turns out that his colleague had the last couple of trays, “You can have vegetarian Gnocchi sir.” Great, all those years of evolution, or all that omniscient creative power, and my canines are going to waste. Apparently the chicken was finished. Yeah I bet, everyone else on the plane wanted vegetarian gnocchi! I didn’t even know gnocchi had made it to the New Hebrides! No problem, could I have a Coke Zero please. (I’d noticed these on the trolley earlier) Nope – all out of Coke Zero too. “I’m not having a particularly good day am I. Any chance of an extra roll?” This sparked a furious debate between the two flight attendants, some remnant of primal struggle (good thing there weren’t spears) but I did in fact get an extra roll, a beatific smile and an offer: “Can I get anything else for you sir?” The 2nd flight attendant really was trying, very hard.

“Well yes actually, I’d like to say on this seat all the way to Sydney, if that’s ok with you.” Apparently not.

I wonder what would happen if I tried to use the same boarding pass in Melbourne to get back on the flight? I mean apart from ditching our luggage, including 2 sets of scuba gear, at Melbourne airport.

As I finish this post, I see the Harbour Bridge outside my window. Doh!! See you tonight, sometime. I mean there can only be about another 6 “helpful” service oriented people between me and you.

We’ve had over 70 years of commercial aviation (my grandfather - Eastern, grandmother - KLM, biological father - Pan Am & United, step-father – SAA, and mother - SAA all flew for commercial airlines), we have increasingly automated computer systems, we’re in the information age. How is it that in 2008, we can still get it so wrong?

R42

As most of my readers will know, I’ve been fortunate enough to have travelled a fair bit. So when I comment on today being another day in paradise, it’s from the perspective of having sailed in Antigua, taught scuba diving in South Africa, and skiied in the Rocky Mountains.

For both Lu and I, this is our first venture to any of the islands of Melanesia. To be fair, my expectations were high, but all of them met with aplomb.

We’d set our alarms for 6:30, so we could breakfast at 7, and be ready for the dive tour at 8. Actually we both woke a lot earlier, and just enjoyed the peace that comes from gentle surf in the distance. Breakfast was interesting, it’s going to take a while to get used to the pace here. Some would call it laconic, or laid back. But just one day into a week-end break, we were still attuned to our Sydney sensibilities and struggled to “go with the flow.” By this evening, that wasn’t a problem.

Then it was “sign your life away” diving disclaimers, kit up and hop on the dive boat. Actually Mel, the chap who runs the dive operation, arrived late, and even so we were giant striding before 9:15. That’s after signing up, briefing, swapping the high pressure hose on both our regs so we could use a dive computer, carrying the kit to the boat, and boating out to the dive site.

Our guide for the first dive, in “Gotham City” (so named because of the bat fish that live there) was Donald. The dive itself was absolutely spectacular. Everything those dive videos promised, in spades and then some. The water was a 25m+ crystal azure, a balmy 28C, with absolutely no current, surge or anything else untoward that would upset a perfect dive. We free descended to about 9m, then headed off around the reef, gradually deepening the dive to about 25m. Somewhere at the 16m mark, for the first time in 17 years of diving, I couldn’t equalise my left ear. I was ok at 16m, but just couldn’t go 30cm deeper. So I just floated above Lu and Don at 16m, trying to equalise, until suddenly I managed to squeeze some air through. I didn’t have any problem for the rest of the dives, just those 4 or so minutes.

Lu cramped up towards the end of the dive. Essentially because she hadn’t clipped her fins on properly, so the straps kept coming loose. The combo of Lu trying to fin without losing her fins, and repeatedly tightening the strap just caused her to seize up. But apart from that, and some buoyancy issues, she too had a great dive for her first time in about 6 years.

The life on the reef is prolific, no really big stuff (turtles, rays, groupers etc) but plenty of Triggers, Anemone fish, Butterflies, Wrasse and the odd Angelfish. Together with the great conditions, it was hard to continue following our Dive Guide. I was all for just hovering in one place the entire dive, and enjoying the teeming abundance.

Before I knew it we were back on the line and in the boat ready to head back to our Hideaway. Next up, Dive two at the wreck of the mighty “Bonzer”

R42

Is of course something we’ve not known in the time Lucy and I have been together. But we always manage to get away for one week-end a year by ourselves. At least once. There have been years when we’ve managed another week-end or two, perhaps a birthday, or a church retreat. But we’ve made it a non-negotiable imperative that for our wedding anniversary, we spend a week-end without the girls.

It’s not always been easy. There have been the times when we’ve had babies needing looking after. Times when we’ve had no money. Times when we’ve had to rely upon goodwill of new friends in an adopted country to look after 4 children. But somehow we’ve always managed it.

This year Lu mentioned she’d like to scuba dive for our week-end away, and I found we could come to Vanuatu using the rest of the frequent flyer miles I had. So here we are, night 1, on Hideaway Island, in Vanuatu. There’s no Internet, no 3G or even GPRS, and no phones. No TV. No loud music. No kids (or at least, not ours). Just the sound of a fan whirring in an attempt to keep the 30C heat and 85% humidity at bay for the night.

It’s usually at this time of our week-end, every year, that we play a game and try to remember where we’ve been. The rules for the week-end are: I organise the even numbered years, Lu organises the odd numbered years (this started with our honeymoon in ‘94). The organiser has total control over the entire week-end, including (if necessary) packing bags, transport, activities, accommodation, and arranging for the kids welfare. That means the week-end is a total surprise for the other partner. It’s remarkably hard to remember each year accurately, hence the game, but it’s always a nice reminder, not to mention a starting check-point for how far we’ve come, and how much we’re grateful for. Here’s what we’ve remembered so far:

So there we have it, the potted history of our extended honeymoon. The first week-end was when we got married, and was a surprise only because we’d planned our main honeymoon for South Africa in the January. Since then we kind of fell into a rhythm, but one which is fiercely guarded to this day.

Of course, every year has had it’s own story too. Like the year we went to Oxford and stayed in a hotel just like Fawlty Towers (with it’s own Basil Fawlty proprietor). Or in Sydney staying in a friends yacht on the harbour and going to dinner by boat essentially because of pecuniary strangulation. In all though, this means we’ve had a total of 28 days over 14 years of kid-less honeymoon holiday. Actually it’s a little more because I’ve kidnapped Lu for her birthday a couple of times as well, and of course we had our “real” honeymoon, 12 days in South Africa too.

On balance, would I have the 28 days in one long holiday before kids, or rather have it spread out over the 14 years (with more to come)? Second option is by far the one I’d choose. Just look at the variety of places we’ve been able to visit. The experiences we’ve enjoyed, and the relationship revitalising injection every year of organising or being treated to a great pampering surprise.

Of course, that’s not a binary choice. You can have both. Kids have friends, you have family, and people are remarkably resilient. Sporting events can be missed, even work events. We should spend more time together just the two of us. After all pretty soon all of our girls will be grown ups and we’ll just have each other. But if you can only organise one a year, do it! It’ll be the best investment you can make in your marriage.

Life without kids, eh? Who’d have thought it?

But it’s late, and I must away. Coming here on a tuppence, using Air Miles meant flying from Sydney via Melbourne (then overflying Sydney). With travel to the airport, check-in, flying, transit, customs, and transfer time, it took us over 10 hours to get here. All I can hope is the diving is worth it.

R42