The flight from Sydney to London leaves at 5pm and arrives at 6am, yet takes 24 hours. It was a long sleepless night for me and Chris; the plane was crowded with Rugby World Cup supporters, it was hard to sleep upright, and we each had half a mind on Rose.
Rose, however, slept like a princess. On longhaul international flights when you have a baby you get seated in a bulkhead seat equipped with a bassinette that clips onto the wall. Rose slept for most of the first flight to Bankok, then woke up grumpy for the obligatory stumble around the Bangkok terminal while the plane was cleaned. Several hours later, she was happy to be back in her bassinette, and slept through until about midday Sydney time. Until we landed she slept on and off in her regular day-time pattern. She cried maybe twice, and lots of people came up to us when we were waiting for our luggage to tell us that she’d been “amazing” on the flight. We were tired, but happy.
That is, until we couldn’t find our second suitcase, the one with all mine and Chris’s clothes and toiletries in it. Have you ever been standing at a luggage carousel while it goes around and around with a couple of stray bags and someone’s forgotten golf clubs? It’s not nice place, especially on such little sleep. I’m pleased to say that neither Chris nor I lost it, even when the baggage guy cheerily suggested that someone had probably taken our bag instead of theirs, since there was a similar-looking one still on the carousel, and that usually people return the suitcase when they make the discovery. It was the word “usually” that made our pulses quicken.
We made our way to the hotel and got settled in, then a few hours later, got notice that the bag had shown up (there was no explanation about what happened), and they couriered it to us poste-haste.
We allowed ourselves an hour and a half nap around midday to rid ourselves of the zombie-like feeling, and I swear I would’ve given Chris at least fifty dollars when he woke me up if he’d let me sleep more. I think Rose felt the same, it was her first crying in days. We waivered on the sound of her animalistic, low, urgent cry; what if getting her up was the wrong thing to do? How would she know about jetlag? Still, we persisted and bundled her into the stroller, and walked to Hyde Park nearby to look at squirrels and large, beautiful herons.
All was well, she slept on and off until her bedtime of 6pm. We fell into bed ourselves at 7pm, and I’ve just woken now at 6am. Everything is good, apart from the weird sulphur-like smell from the bathroom. We’ve smelt it before, we think. English pipes.
