Wednesday
Last night was a very long and tiring night. Our airport transfer arrived promptly at 7pm to take us to Cairo Airport in good time for our 11pm flight. As we approached the airport, we got emails to say the flight was delayed an hour. That immediately became messy for us because it meant we would miss our connection to Cape Town.
When we checked in the helpful Egyptian Air guy changed our Jo’burg to Cape Town flight by an hour.
Our flight left Egypt just after midnight. There were hardly any free seats so our family were separated with Mike and I on seats across the aisle. Jess and Gerrie were together and Julian and David were slotted in where the airline had availability. I managed to sleep (my watch told me I’d slept for 33 minutes). Mike did not sleep at all.
I was sitting next to a lady who had quite a story. I’ll call her Sue. She and her long time childhood friend had once toured Europe and they decided it would be fun to do it again in their 60th year. They were starting their holiday in Amsterdam and left Johannesburg on Monday night – flying Egypt Air to Amsterdam, via Cairo. They weren’t stopping in Cairo but just in transit. Sue is South African but was born in Australia so she has an Oz passport. They arrived in Egypt and they went through to have their passports checked in order to get onto the Amsterdam flight, only to discover that when Sue left home, she had inadvertently taken her old Australian passport and it had expired in December. It was not noticed before she left SA. Now she was sitting in Cairo and of course no one would let her proceed. After much discussion, Sue’s friend went onto Amsterdam, while she was put on our plane to fly back to Johannesburg to pick up her valid passport. As I write, she is at the airport having boarded an Air France plane and is once again Europe bound, flying to Amsterdam via Paris.
What a story.
The other part is that her friend and her luggage got swapped, so her friend is in Amsterdam with Sue’s clothes and Sue is returning with her friends.
Sue was quite philosophical about it but sighed at the R12 000 mistake. Costly and oh so tiring.
I felt so sorry for her.
We arrived safely in Johannesburg and dashed through to get on the Cape Town bound flight. Mike mislaid his boarding pass which resulted in panic stations. He had boarding passes for both legs in his passport and gave the man at the gate the wrong one. David and I were ahead of him and about to put our luggage through security when we realised Mike wasn’t with us and looked back to find him scratching feverishly through his backpack. The gate man said to go to SAA and print another one (we were late – boarding had already started so we were beginning to panic as we were not yet through security). But there was a moment of humour because I said, “David just go back and go with Dad to SAA. I’ll watch your stuff.” Mike hadn’t heard this so he said, “what must I do?” So the gate man said, “you just go with David!” It just sounded so funny him saying David’s name. At that moment, Mike found the second boarding pass in his passport. It was confusing because Egypt air had given us Egypt Air boarding passes for both the international flight and the SAA flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Travelling can be so stressful sometimes!
We were pleased to be homeward bound and had a smooth and uneventful flight back to Cape Town.
There is no place like home…
So grateful to the Lord for safe arrivals!
We got back to our house where David had his car. David drove home and despite our sleep deprivation we pretty much followed him keen to see the progress at Echo. All the boxing is off..
The basement plastering is going well…
The plasterer was working while we were there….
And the plumber was also there. Mike was able to have a chat to him to discuss exactly where the kitchen sink must go. This level is the second level and they’ve added a retaining wall to prevent rocks falling…
This is from the stairs looking down on them…
We didn’t stay long. I dropped Mike home and then went and did some shopping. When I got back, I showered and then headed for bed. We slept for about 2 hours and that made all the difference, although I can tell you I won’t be long out of bed tonight! Mike has been feeling a bit fluey. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will shake that off.
It’s been a hectic 12 days. I’m so happy I was able to record most of it. I end with a photo of our tour group at the pyramids. The photo taken a few seconds previously would have had be throwing my head back with laughter as the photographer had said SMELL! instead of SMILE! This was the second one that had to be taken because in the first you couldn’t see the pyramids! 😅
A good memory!
Job 8:21
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting.
These are the days.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂
Gym:
I’ve only done 6338 steps today. I’ll catch up on sleep and get back to gym soon.
Braces:
1 year and 56 days