The airport and where it got me

Last time I was here was the day a bikie was bludgeoned to death. Today is easier. As ever, I gave in to my innermost panic about getting there EARLY. Dr P had proposed driving me there and I had resigned myself to another stop and start journey through Newtown.

I had spent the morning doing all the last minute things - bought eggs and milk, and posted a parcel to return to friends the large plastic cake container they'd forgotten to take home months ago when they came to dinner, and which I had never managed to remember when I was in a position to do something about it. You know - you are on the bus and remember it, then you get home and your mind goes blank again.

Packing took an inordinate amount of time. It should not have, of course, given that the trip is only for two full days. But as it is to Melbourne, glory city of variable weather, and likely to be cooler than Sydney (I am writing this on the plane and they just announced that Melbourne IS cooler) I need more choices than seem reasonable.

Obviously I need a choice of wardrobe for the wedding. this means for the top half of me, as on the bottom half of me is invariably clad in black pants. I'd pranced - a relative term - about my bedroom trying on all the possibilities - did it fit, or almost fit, what goes with what, and which colour would I wear on the day out of the options of blue, green or purple?

Thus I did not pack into the smallest possible bag, but into a larger and somehow more unwieldy one. And I had to remember Stomper's Christmas present, by request a new bone china teapot. I found a lovely Vera Wang teapot with a matching milk jug, and did not want to trust it to the post. But I am feeling anxious that despite all the protective wrapping and clothes surrounding it, that some mindless bag handler will hurtle it to the ground and that it will all be in bits - just like an art installation at the NSW Art Gallery which features a broken sculpture on the floor near the entrance.

Back to the sequence of events. (I trained as an historian.) At the last minute Dr P decided he did not feel like driving, so I got a taxi. The driver, an Afghani, told me all about his wild youth, but was thankful that his three children have turned out to be quiet and good. He said he'd been a weightlifter, a wrestler and a boxer, but I am not sure whether he said all that because I told him about my nephew, the bridegroom, being a medal winning weightlifter.

It is rare to have a boring conversation with a Sydney taxi driver.

Once through the check-in, I ambled about the airport, looked at the overpriced shops and their contents, failed to find a chocolate that appealed to me, had a cappuccino and some Pringles chips, and watched the sort of people who relentlessly push past other people. You'd think they would make way for little old ladies, but No! Maybe if I let my hair go grey? I doubt it.

We are taxiing for takeoff now, and once airborne I will read. It is a novel called Knitting, about bereavement, grieving, knitting and healing. Not bad, but predictable so far, and I would not recommend it to my recently widowed friend.

I enjoyed a wonderful view of Sydney from the air, which might even rival the view from the Bridge Climb!

I am writing this on the back of my boarding pass. The creative urge struck and I had no other piece of paper handy.

I am writing the foregoing at Stomper's place, while her boys play on the other computer beside me, with a very animated conversation going on about their game. Something to do with pirates, I think - have they been watching the news of all those Somalian pirates? I am having a good time with the family. Having taken the Skybus and then the tram, my sister C picked me up, we then bought some vegetables, rushed home and prepared dinner, chopped and started cooking vegetables for soup, raced out to the 6.30 session of Summer Hours, came home, had dinner, talked and talked, went to bed, got up, met other sisters, including the exceedingly excited mother of the bridegroom, who is beside herself with delight, and a niece, walked for ages to get to a cafe for breakfast where we undid all the benefits of the walk, peeked in dress shops, walked back to C's place, from whence they all scattered, and then Stomper picked me up and I am having a meaningful interface with the computer, but will stop now and talk to my cherished human relations. The teapot is intact.