weekend at Brian and Pam's

I spent the weekend at mum and dad's, or should I say I came close to not spending the weekend at mum and dad's. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8.20am Saturday morning meaning I had to be up and out of the house on my way to the airport no later than 7.15am. My friend Kate had volunteered to drive me as she was working that day anyway and would use it as an excuse to get up early so that afterwards she could complete some house chores before heading off to work. The Friday night was going to be a quiet one. We had a friends birthday dinner and there were only five of us going, including the birthday girl's new boyfriend. Prior to leaving for the restaurant I had said to Kate that I wanted to be home by midnight due to our early start, she said no problem.

We went to a Turkish restaurant in Glebe. It was great food and the night was a hit with good conversation, plenty of laughs and plenty of red wine flowing. By the time we left the restaurant we all had changed our tipsy minds that we should go out for a couple of more drinks at one of our locals. The night went on and on and we were having way to much fun, which was evident by Kate and I getting back to her house at 3.30am and very very drunk. We decided that we would do something quickly on the computer and while I was getting it set up she went off to make us more Vodka Tonics. She cam back and placed both drinks down on the table and then disappeared. Come 4am with no return of Kate I went searching, and there I found her tucked up in bed deep down under the covers sound asleep. I took this as my que and left her house to walk home, to which I myself finally crawled into bed at 4.15am. Thank goodness she just lives around the corner. My luggage was already packed and my clothes for the trip already sorted out, so all I had to do was set my alarm to wake me up in two hours and all would be sweet. Why do we think that when we have a deadline to do something and we go out and get trashed only to get home just a couple of hours before we again need to be up, that we are going to not sleep through an alarm? In my state that's exactly what I thought only to wake at 8.35am, ten minutes after my flight had left. I called Kate then called my parents to then call Qantas to see what my options were. No wonder the bastards have just reported a $1.03 billion dollar profit as they made me buy another one way ticket on the next available flight, and in that fare I again had to pay all the taxes and airport charges as well as them charging me a $25 over the phone booking fee. Its day light robbery. Kate finally dropped me off at the airport a few hours early, so I popped myself into the Qantas Lounge and proceeded to fill myself up on their free fruit salad's, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, cheese platter, bread rolls with cold meats and coffee. Meanwhile Kate was already running late for work by the time she dropped me off and was no stuck in traffic heading back into the city from the airport.

Finally I boarded my flight only to be delayed due to a late flight coming in that had people connecting to ours. I was hung over and it was hot and uncomfortable in this small plane, a Dash 8. I thought I was as going to die. But not die as much as my mother thought I was going too as we came into Port Macquarie. It even felt a bit touch and go for me. Our decent was steep, fast and the plane slightly tipping to one side. My mum said from watching its approach that she could tell we were going too fast and the last thing she wanted was to come to the airport to greet her son only to watch his plane crash and burn. The plane didn't crash and burn, but did came to an almighty stop. The seat belt was thankfully tight and low across my waist as otherwise I was sure to head but the seat, if not the passenger, in front of me.

I had a great couple of days with them just maffing and talking about my plans for the future in regards to my wanting to move to the States to live and work for a few years. Dad also dropped the bombshell over dinner on Saturday night saying that it gives him the shits that he doesn't have any grandchildren to doat over like most of their friends. It was very uncomfortable for me being that the likelihood of me producing any is very small indeed. I could only respond by declaring that he better not be thinking that its my fault, to which he did say that he wasn't. But how was I to take that? Being the only child in their lives and not having the opportunity to give them that and then have it thrown in your face. I know my dad loves me for who I am, and yet one day he may still get what he wants. But for now its not going to happen.

Sunday we went out for lunch at a vineyard. I had great food, dad said he like his, but mum had trouble with hers. We knocked back a bottle of red over lunch and chit chat and then headed home to chill. I love chilling and think everybody should do more of it. A storm developed during the early hours of this morning. It woke me at about 4.30am and went through until 6.30am when I finally fell back to sleep. It was blowing an absolute gale and the rain was pissing down. I was beginning to think that maybe my 9.40am flight will be indefinitely delayed, but from mum and dads place you can at times hear the planes taking off if the wind is blowing in the right direction and at 6.30am I heard the mornings first light leave. I can only imagine what it would have been like for those people on that flight. It would have been as rough as guts during take off and climbing to cruising altitude. By the time my flight came around the winds had eased but the rain was still bucking down. We left and hour late and I finally got to work at midday. I couldn't really give a shit about getting in late, and apparently nobody else did either.