WHEW!

Now while I admit that the delay has taken the 'sting' out of the post about the dramatic start to our Dunedin trip, it's still worth posting, even to just stop all the nagging.

Last Thursday I planned our trip to the airport by bus. Two buses actually, a number 140 from Mount Pleasant where we are living and, at the bottom of the hill a number 3 to the airport. I calculated that the trip would take just over an hour and safely get us to the airport in time for the 6.40 boarding call. 

I told The Old Girl that the number 3 bus would be at the stop at the bottom of the hill at 5.03 so we had better be catching the number 140 at the stop nearby at 4.45. She agreed to this and even suggested leaving the house early - just in case - at about 4.40. Richard will appreciate the irony of this as he knows that trying to organise a woman to get out of the house to go somewhere at a prearranged time is like herding cats. Anyway, we left the house with our bags - backpack for me and a small suitcase for her - and, just as we were about to cross the road a number 140 bus was coming up the hill.

"We'll jump on it here" she said "it'll take us up the hill and back down afterwards".

I agreed. thinking that the bus would just go to the top of the hill but, as I'd never been up there had no idea of the labrynthine course along side roads both upwards and downwards it would take before eventually coming back down the hill. My calculation of the 4.45 time of arrival at the stop near us was based on the schedule saying it would leave Mount Pleasant at 4.40. I assumed a 5 minute run down the hill to our stop. I was wrong.

I hadn't counted on a bus full of schoolkids either. These little b ... rascals decided to press the stop button for every bloody bus stop. Richard would have been getting anxious. Half way through the generally uphill journey (in a completely opposite direction than we needed to go) The Old Girl told me that she'd left her phone in the house. Her phone. The piece of technology that basically rules her life both work and leisure. The item that when I ask if she has it before leaving the house she peevishly answers "of course I do". This time I didn't ask and she had left it on the hall table. Bummer!

The bus was taking ages on its journey and appeared nowhere near the top. The Old Girl went and talked to the bus driver and explained the situation. He agreed to, on the way downhill (eventually) to stop outside our house and wait while she ran inside to get her phone. We'd run out of schoolkids by then. Time was relentlessly marching on. Richard would have been very anxious by now.

The phone was retrieved successfully and we made it to the bus stop at the bottom of the hill to wait for the number 3 to the airport. "Whew!" said The Old Girl.  "All good" I said looking relaxed in the knowledge that when I'd told her the number 3 was leaving at 5.03, I'd built in a safety margin of 15 minutes. It was now 5.07 so we had 8 extra minutes to wait.