the flights

ok, so you all want detail, so you gonna get it
when david and i left South Africa 2 weeks ago tantrums, traumas and tears where all had at the airport in joberg with granny-mum and rusty and then after an hour wait on the runway due to somebody changing their mind and not boarding after checking in and some other issue of inefficiency that really irritated the Aussie Pilot on our Qantus flight we eventually took off for Sydney after 7pm on Friday night. David was juuust getting a little niggly by the time we took off and we where all pleased to see dinner being served soon after the 30 mins of turbulence was over ..... note to parents of toddlers : order a kiddies meal when booking tickets, it comes before the main meal is served so you can feed little one before you eat and the noodle loved the smiley face hash brown ! i only tell you this as i did not order the kiddies meal as i did not even know about it but the extremely friendy and efficient Qantus flight crew thoughfully gave me a spare one and told me i should have ordered one ......

david watched a couple minutes of bob the builder and then had a spoonful of stopayne to wash his supper down and by 8pm he was stretched out over 2 seats (very nice man moved) and thus he stayed until breakfast time. Me, on the other hand did not sleep, the large Maori guy in front pushed his seat all the way back and diabetic Pomie lady behind kept on getting up to go to the loo, therefore pushing my seat and this was not condusive to much sleep so i watched a bad romcom and then tossed and turned and moaned and groaned for a most the night.
landing in sydney was very exciting and just being in Oz made things seem a little more real and chatting to nat & deon on real time was great ! thankfully the wait in sydney was not too long as we had arrived late due to the late departure out of ORT so before we knew it, it was time to board the new plane to NZ. The Noodle was really so well behaved and a little star, he befriended a little Indian girl and was telling her "babba-babba airplane in fly in sky" even tho she was probably 10 years old ! the flight to auckland was quite empty and a bit weird.... we took off at about 5pm Aussie time and then we where served supper, flew from bright sunshine into night darkness and landed in Auckland after 10pm. The Kiwi Qantus staff where actually much more helpful and friendlier than their Aussie counterparts so can you imagine how nice they where :))
so we landed in auckland, it was raining and cold but SO ABSOLUTELY AMAZING to be in the same country again as Deon - sms'ing madly to him - we got thru passport control with no problem - not a question asked and she did not even want to see my return ticket ...... and so we go thru to collect our luggage...... and then after waiting for a looong time only my suitcase and the car seat had come thru - david's suitcase and his pram not anywhere to be seen ... david's pram was suppossed to be given back to me in sydney but it never materialised and i was told it had gone straight to auckland so a red flag was raised in my cynical little brain already. I told the very helpful people at baggage services my problem and they very cleverly could see on the computer that the pram was indeed still in sydney but could not trace the noodle's suitcase. it was nearly midnight - i just wanted to get out and see deon so i gave them deon's cell phone number and told them to call me when they found it.
and then we walked into the arrivals hall and there was deon .....
ok, i am tired, you are bored and if you really read all the way thru all this crap you really should get a life
more to follow soon - promise
love and miss you all
R, D & dj