The week of woes, worries and wonders

Yes I have finally arrived home and here I sit to fill you all in on the week-and-a-bit that was.

As you know, I headed off to sea on HMAS Newcastle on Monday for the week as they headed up to sunny Cairns. Though Cairns was in fact sunny, nothing about the trip up the coast was. Rained almost non-stop the whole way, but thankfully it was not rough, so only had to treat three for sea-sickness thank goodness.

The week in total was really good and it was interesting to see what life at sea is like on an FFG (Fast Frigate Guided) as I had never served on one previously. The layout of the place took me a couple of days to work out, but thankfully, I didn't find myself too lost.

A good bunch of people all up and had a good time, though alas I managed to pick up the dreaded 'lurgy' off one of my patients, which has not been the most fun. Especially descending in the plane on the way back to Sydney and being unable to valvesalva.....ouch would be an understatement.

Speaking of the plane trip, until I arrived at Carins airport I had never in my life had a problem at an airport. Not a lost bag, not a rude staff member and never a delay of more then half an hour. Apparently, I'm told I have been very lucky. Well, that all changed when I arrived at Cairns airport 40 minutes before my plane was to depart, thinking to myself that the rush was worth it to get here before the '30 minutes before the flight' routine.

I was told by the quite rude lady behind the Qantas desk that I was too late to catch the flight. With a startled look on my face I questioned this and said that the cut off is half an hour and I still had 40 minutes before the flight was to depart. She promptly and curtly informed me that in Cairns the cut off time for flights is one hour.

I further questioned this and said that it was normal policy for it to be half an hour for domestic flights and one hour for international flights. "Not in Cairns", she spits at me. She then goes on to dismiss me, but I managed to get out of her who I should speak too in regards to this.

So in a very annoyed stride, I strode to this other lady in question, reminding myself to be calm and reasonable. Well once this COMPLETE bitch opened her mouth I knew I was not going to get anywhere. The best she could do for me was to book me on the next available flight, which was not until the following morning. So I shut up and let her rebook the flight and went outside to breathe.

To cut a long story short, I contacted the Qantas business centre to see if they could do anything. Thankfully they were wonderful and even though there were no available Qantas flights on Friday night, she booked me on a Virgin flight. I was happy with that, even though it meant a 2-and-a-bit hour wait, at least I would be home.

Unfortunatly due to the horrible weather down the coast, the plane was delayed several times and didn't leave till much later. Still I got home just before midnight.

Yes I will be lodging a formal complaint about the Cairns Qantas people.

The following day, the Guvnr ending up having to pop into work for the morning to make sure everything was going along well due to the wild weather and we finally departed for the Blue Mountains mid-afternoon.

The long weekend in the mountains is an annual event that a big group of friends go along to called the Queens Ball. It is hosted by a local GLBT group called the Three Sisters Social Club. It is a fancy dress ball with a main theme and each group of people come up with their own adaptation to the theme and get dressed up. It's a great night every time and this year was no exception.

Unfortunatly the Guvnr was recalled to work at 0200 Sunday morning....ewwww.....though he didnt have to leave till 0700 so that wasnt tooooo bad. So he drove back to Sydney to start a 12 hour shift routine...ughhhh

The theme this year was 'A Latin Affair', so our group went outside the box, as we usually do, and went along as the Brazillian football team. We looked great and the table that we had set up as a soccer field looked awesome. Here are a couple of pics of the night.




I shall have to leave it there for now as it is getting late, the Guvnr has arrived home, it's time for dinner and I need to get ready for a Military Legal Proceeding tomorrow........more about that tomorrow.

Love to you all and I hope you all had a great long weekend....for those that got one..lol

Simon

XOX