IT'S NOW THURSDAY ....

It's been a record 4 days since I last posted and already it's creating high levels of concern amongst readers*.

I've just arrived in Christchurch, flying in severe conditions with storms up and down the country. I was supposed to fly on Wednesday morning but late on Tuesday night Air NZ sent me a message to say the the first leg of the trip was cancelled. I went on line and rescheduled for Wednesday late afternoon. 

 .... I've lost a day of my holiday.

Shortly before I was to leave for the airport I received another alert from Air NZ advising of nighttime fog conditions at ChCh airport and suggesting a change. I called The Old Girl and we discussed whether I should take the chance anyway and fly out of Whangarei hoping that the ChCh fog would clear. We agreed that it would be a silly idea and I might get stranded in Auckland so I went on-line again and rescheduled for this morning.

This was wise as not long after that Northland experienced one of the worst thunder and lightning storms for a while and rain bucketed down. The flight was cancelled. The storm raged during the night which was quite spectacular with over 400 lightning flashes which lit up the bay and growling and booming thunder which, at times, shook the house.

This morning I was half expecting to get another flight alert but went to the airport at the scheduled time. The flight was delayed a bit due to rain which made for a quick dash at Auckland to connect with the ChCh flight.

I have to say that Air NZ provided damned good service. The alerts were handy and rescheduling on-line was easy and successful. They cannot control the weather. As we arrived in Auckland they made an announcement to passengers to stay seated and allow any people connecting to the ChCh flight to get off first so they could dash to meet their flight. This was very welcome.

I'm now safely in ChCh in a very warm house (it has underfloor heating and a quiet and unobtrusive heating system that keeps temperature at a steady 22 degrees). It's wet and dreary outside though and the forecast is for this to be the case for a few days. Bummer! When I was down last month the weather was perfect but I was crippled with back problems and couldn't enjoy it. I've made car and accommodation bookings this weekend for us to go the Akaroa. It would have been nicer in good weather but hey! We'll still have a good time.

I checked the blogs once I set up the computer (laptop) and was surprised to see that Richard hasn't posted for days either. I guess that he's been so worried about me that he just couldn't manage it. Robert the inconsiderate sinner and wisher that I would delete my blog hasn't written much. I blame  his diet which has too much processed meats in it. It must be clogging up his mental processes - well, that and his current fascination with the Baltimore Catechism. That'd clog up anyone's memory, emotion, perception, imagination, thinking and reasoning. Maybe he needs a good purge. I recommend Metamucil for his body and Richard Dawkins for his mind.

* Well, one anyway. Richard phoned me to see if I was OK.