Off we go!

For several weeks now I've been hanging out for this flight to England, imagining myself getting on the plane and lying back for 8 hours to Singapore and then a further twelve hours to London. just goes to show that one should check one's itinerary.
one hour to Sydney and now a couple of hours in the airport, now one of mummify disliked airports in the world, before we can get on our next flight which will take us to Hong Kong where we will be landing at 2 amish and then waiting around for a couple of hours - not long enough to do anything.
Sydney airport. the first bit was great. We had to get a bus from the domestic terminal to the International, which took us right across the various tarmacs - a strange world where one is immediately diminished by the huge beasts of the air around you. A journey that stirred up so many different emotions; excitement, sadness, anxiety, excitement again. Airports have literally been the cross roads of my life so many times over the years, taking me away from Africa, away from Saudi Arabia, away from England, taking me to new countries to new places and discoveries and homes. Oh to be able to jump onto any plane and go anywhere. (Though of course I would choose England and my family.) But if only we didn't have to come home again - not that I wont miss Brisbane, wont miss Guinness and the cats and the chickens and all our friends, of course I will. but there is so much of the world out there, lying undiscovererd....)
If I had had my wits about me, (or if, in fact, I had looked more closely at our itinerary) we would have packed a lunch to take, to eat in Sydney, but of course,over the last few days I have been making sure that we ate all our remaining food or passed it on to our lucky neighbours ("Gee Thanks Lucy, lovely rotten bananas"). So it was straight to the food court in Sydney airport where we opted for our last Australian pies - the most expensive pies in the world.
Then it was into the rat maze - cordoned off queues that snake up and down, up and down with hundreds of people all shuffling, dopey eyed, up and down for what seems like years. Trust me, this is not a nice place to be stuck with a grumpy teenager, though to be honest, I was quite surprised to find that he was still a teenager by the time we got through it all. You keep zig zagging past the same people - you going one way, they going the other - and after a while, you start to smile foolishly at each other, then to exchange pleasantries and eventually, to pass on news about your families and children, grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. Then you eventually get to passport control before joining another shambling rat maze so that you can go through security - this though you have already been through security at Brisbane airport. Then at last you are set free into the woefully seat limited duty free area, where four members of your family disappear into the toilets and only three come out again. At this point, you go running frantically around the shops - book shop first, since this was Lydia - visions of white slave traders dancing in your head, before bursting into tears at a lovely lady in a jewellery shop. She directs you to Information who are just about to call security, when your husband runs up to say that the prodigal daughter is found. Whereupon Information gives you a $10 voucher for Cadbury's chocolate. Now only an hour or so before the flight to HK, goody goody.