An Ideal Husband

Hey all,

After K left I had some decisions to make – namely whether I pushed my flight back for a week, tried to find a job, then pushed it back a bit more once I knew I had some income – which was what I wanted to do.  Got in touch with the travel agent to rebook my flight, but it turned out that the next available slot was not till mid March – the London to China leg was no drama, but there is so much traffic between Australia and China that this leg is booked up forever.   Due to the state of my finances and my reluctance to become a prostitute, this was a bit of a problem – if I took the punt on staying another two months here so I could work for a bit, then get to Ireland, then come home, and did not in fact get a job, then I was going to find myself with no food and nowhere to live pretty quickly.

Here began several days of agonised soul searching.  I was hoping that K would help my by becoming all hysterical and demanding, insisting that as we are now engaged (just thought I would slip that in there) I should come home immediately, that it was not fair on a girl to have a fiance continually faffing about in other countries in some kind of pointless and indefinite manner.  If she had done this then I would have been able to become all outraged and, shouting something down the phone like, “Stop trying to control me and ruin my life!!!!” I could have booked for another couple of months in a fit of pique without having to think about it too much.  Unfortunately K refused to oblige, simply kept coming out with things along the lines of, “I will support you whatever you do,” and, “I believe in you,” and “whatever you decide I am sure it will be fine,” and so on, which was shockingly thoughtless of her and left me in the frightful position of having to make a decision without the useful aid of anger, resentment and an easy snap judgement.

Finally I decided to take the punt, and sent off an email to the travel agent to say go ahead.  Decision made, I of course laid awake until 7AM the next morning agonising over it (and being bothered by Polish snorer above me (I changed dorms the next day to a dorm that I still have to myself, joy)).  Got a reply to email saying agent was out of the office for the next three days.  Sent an email to emergency email saying go ahead.  No response.  Finally got in touch with travel agent, asked him to get back to me with exactly how much it was going to cost.  Checked email in morning, no response.  Sent somewhat terse email to agent asking for a hurry up.  Received somewhat terse response saying that he had requested information from airline but they were not getting back to him.  The next day, now well inside the 48 window prior to the flight when rebooking is not allowed and still without any information still on whether it was possible or how much it was going to cost me, I sent an email saying don't worry about it.

Which means, as I write this, that I will be getting on a plane to come home tomorrow to the flaccid arms of a Nanny State that will probably contrive to fine me for something at least twice between the airport and K's place, and where it will no doubt soon be illegal to enjoy a cigar even if you are outdoors and 100 metres away from another human being...

Photos.  1.  The Rack, ie, me making a decision.  2.  Writing blog posts in the lounge in hotel in London.

Cheers, B.