A BUSY COUPLE OF WEEKS

My life spiralled out of control for a couple of weeks, but I think that I've sorted it now (fingers crossed and all that good stuff!). I have (had) a few problems which are (were) all good but time consuming and looking for immediate decisions, so it did get a bit stressful. 

First on the agenda was my new house build.  I think that I have mentioned before that I have a plot of land beside my house. My first inclination was to build it myself using sub-contractors.  Then I got cold feet, got in builders quotes, saw the prices and decided to go back to Plan A to save myself money.  So I've been trying to get this underway asap.  In all honesty I don't see this happening until at least the summer, but I'm not in any real hurry.  

In the meantime I have arranged to go to Australia on 10th February with my granddaughter and two great granddaughters to visit my grandson and his girlfriend who live there.  The challenge here was to give the girls the time of their lives in 2 weeks which proved to be quite stressful.  Trying to liaise and organise has been almost impossible because of the time difference and the fact that Vinnie and Hils work long hours.  But I think that we finally sorted it out yesterday.  I will then stay on and do a road trip with Vinnie and Hills "until the inheritance runs out" as he put it. 

I have also arranged to visit my friends in America early May to take a look at their new home in Desert Hot Springs and then do another amazing road trip with them back to their other home in Seattle.

So, in my infinite wisdom I thought "why go back to the UK?  I should just stay on in Australia until the end of April and then fly there direct".  In other words cut out the middle man - the UK. Note to self "don't be so bloody stupid next time" because it proved to be a nightmare. Although we made sure that my return flight ticket date could be changed as it turned out the destination could not and the ticket could not be converted to World Traveller or anything sensible like that!

But it still made sense to throw away my "home" portion of the ticket and book fresh from Australia to USA and then back to London.  But the cost of that jolly jaunt was absolutely extortionate. Reason?  They are two single tickets and single tickets come at a premium.  I 'phoned my friend who worked in BA and she confirmed this was correct.    I know that by shopping around I can get this cost much lower, but I was raging about it. I feel a swear coming on - f****** airlines need to get their act together!

However, whilst I was on an OzBus reunion in London this weekend one of my friends wondered if there might be a cruise liner going across and there is. The Sea Princess leaves Sydney on 15th April for a 29 day cruise to San Francisco via New Zealand and the Polynesian Islands arriving on 13th May. And, believe it or not, there is little difference in the cost!  I had to check that this was OK with my friends because they had planned to leave DHS the 1st week of May, but thankfully they have agreed to hang on for a while so that I can take this trip of a lifetime.
 
So today I hope to get this nailed on the head.