Flying To London

When you discover your child is scared of heights- it is best not to sit them at the window seat of an international flight- we discovered this at flight #3 23 hours into traveling to London. One word meltdown.

Sleep deprived parents and children, security mad airports and line and lines of people. But I am proud to say we did ok. We managed only to argue in Hong Kong but still loved each other when boarding the next flight.

Felix and Matilda might still be happy to get on a airplane again.

Hello London.

Zurich Transfer + flight

Our last transfer onto a plane bound for London. Another hour of navigating another airport. In this case we have our boarding passes. Our only delay is a long delay on the queue checking luggage. My laptop gets a thorough rub down with a little paper patch that has a small, coin sized, circular wire in it. Presumably some kind of antenna. The guard asks me for my boarding pass and disappears with it for 5 minutes. We are running out of time to get to our flight but what can I do? Guard comes back and confirms that everything is OK.

We are the last to board the plane. We finally get a window seat. After 24 hours of travel, the kids start to loose it. Felix is upset with the window seat, with how many horse stickers he has in his scrap book, with the taste of the complimentary chocolates. We rearrange seating position between us 5 times including once on the run way. 1 hour and 20 minutes later we will be in London

Swiss Air - Hong Kong to Zurich

14 hours of flying ahead. The seats have more room to stretch my legs then the previous flight. After a quick supper the whole plane went to sleep. The kids also got a bit of a snooze, Matilda lying on top of me for 4 hours, slowly sliding down my chest, my back uncomfortable, seat not reclining enough, every 20 minutes I wake up to reposition her.

As the plane wakes up the kids also get up and are in a good mood. They make up a song singing "make potato" over and over and over again.

Hong Kong Transfer

As we got off the plane we had only 1 hour to find out where we are transferring to and sorting out boarding passes, as well as the walking at the pace of a 21 month old, and the whims of a 3.5 year old not wanting to walk on a travelator, as well as a bit of a language barrier with the airport staff thrown in for good measure.

Everyone from the airport staff seemed to tell us to go UP. Up to the transfer desk at gate 61 (which did not exist), up the stairs to the airline desk (which ended up being down) and finally a janitor in the dunnies, that convinced me to swap my $AUD 5 for £ 2, said to go to a level 7 cafe to get some drinking water as the water fountain was closed for maintenance.

4 boarding passes all the way through to London, everything seemed to have gone right again.

Melbourne Airport Checkin

It seems that Felix is not linked to the rest up us by his plane ticket. Sarah stood at check in for over 1 hour as the staff tried to work something out. This certainly did not sound like the perfect start to the trip. We had 2 transfers ahead of us and were not sure if we had spots on the plane let alone our luggage getting through. For the time being we got some boarding passes for all of us sitting next to each other to Hong Kong.

Packing and the last minute rush

hmmm little can be said of the advantages of packing with a toddler in tow! Completely inefficient packing partner- but the company is jolly, high spirited and fun to be with.

A brain minute..

I know parents who have children who are out of control and very difficult to live with. There seems to be the parents who ask for help and those who deny to themselves that there is a problem. Everyone is doing the best they can. But sometimes it is easy to think it is all ok rather than admit you can't do something. I am bless with parents who have never made me feel like I failed even when I have attempted something and not got to where I imagined or hoped for. I was that annoying child at school who kept asking questions- even the dumb ones- only to realise that 80% of the class wanted to but didn't want appear to be stupid.

An aspect I really struggle with- to parent and help a child grow and develop in the way we want means admitting and dealing with our own faults, hang-ups, relationships with our own parents and siblings.

I have a image of family, trusting, supportive, generous, loving, challenging, perhaps an idealistic vision but one to working towards I think. Is it right to simply let apart of your family slide away and simply have "nice" meaningless moments once or twice a year? Questions questions questions. That's better a rant a brain minute- now off to read about biodynamic gardening for the kinder veg patch!