An inauspicious start

Star Wars Episode n+1 - "A New Blog"

"A new blog?!" I hear you cry.  "How come?"  Because sodding Google buggers around with my blogging password so much and makes it so hard to get a new one (I'm in NZ and they want to send a verification code to my US cellphone which is also sleeping quietly and impotently in NZ.)  So, rather than wait till I get home and forgetting everything I did and what all the photos are of, I am starting a new blog.  Not a clue how I will join the two together, if at all.  I hear you can export and import blogs but the Pacific Ocean is at my feet and I think I may find that more inviting.
Do me a favour - if I ever tell you I can't edit this blog, please tell me that the userid is jmycroftnz@gmail.com and the password is related to the lodge in the usual way.
So, how am I, what have I been doing and all that.

Getting here

I flew the whole way on American Airlines, taking three flights in all.  I resisted the temptation to pay 20-something bucks to board the 50 seater from Asheville to Charlotte with the business class crowd.  Much to my amazement, my seat arrived about the same time as theirs did.  I got to Charlotte in time to catch the flight I had originally been booked on until I phoned American and told them they had left me an impossibly tight connection.  My American account no doubt has a large "I told you so" stamp on it.  The flight from Charlotte was comfortable enough and I was grateful for the abundance of toilets.  I enjoyed my homemade sandwiches while those around me either munched on a free cookie or paid a week's food bill for something nasty looking (I'd shoved my laptop into my bag on top of the sandwich so it looked pretty unappetising, too.).

The flight from LA to Auckland (all 12+ hours of it) was a different story.  American Airlines have now decided that anyone over 6' tall is a freak and deserves torturing in true medieval style.  The torture they came up with on the Boeing 787 is a horizontal piece of number 8 fencing wire across the top of the magazine pocket. The purpose of it is to remind you that you have kneecaps which either rest on it with the threat of popping out if you rest your book on your knees or they rest underneath it so that they will head for your ankles if you move too fast.  Fortunately, once I had emptied the magazines, chunder bag etc from the seat pocket to gain an extra millimeter or two of comfort, one of the cabin crew picked them up and spirited them away,.  At about the 3 hour mark into the flight, my body seemed to do a sudden shrinking act and my feet disappeared under the seat in front after which I got 5 or so hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Shortly after I woke up, I was given one of those industrial snack things that airlines love so much - I think it claimed to be a mini burrito.  Not mini enough.  Breakfast was well done so all was forgiven.  But all round - bugger the expense, it's Air New Zealand for me next time.

I breezed through the airport at Auckland - the passport reader was refusing to read passports and a very helpful immigration officer couldn't persuade it to, either.  But that added only 5 minutes to the exit.

Georgia was waiting with a yelled enquiry as to my recent career with Fleetwood Mac  I responded in kind about my forthcoming double album and off we went to her car which, from the price of the parking, had been in the parking lot overnight.  I didn't sleep on the way to Waihi but remember nothing of the drive, either.