Dear reader

The saga continues but with a health warning…you may find this tale sad or hilariously funny. I’m the subject and I don’t know where I sit on that spectrum.

The story so far today sees me catching a 1.00 am (yes…after midnight) additional flight from Singapore to Auckland. It means that as I write this it’s 30 hours and counting without any meaningful sleep – that’s on top of the hours between Saturday morning and whenever I arrived in Singapore but I think that was before time began!

The overnight flight (Singapore Airways food seems to be beyond description) was uneventful and due to a tail wind landed 30 minutes early. That’s when things went pear shaped in a big way.

Gabrielle is still letting NZ feel the after effects of her wind…so much so, we sat on the tarmac gently rocking whilst we wait for our parking space to come free from a double-parked plane.

So arriving early meant arriving late…in time for even more fun! Given the high winds it’s too dangerous to unload or load luggage and had been so for the previous handful of international arrivals before mine.

A scrum is not the word and I regret to say that whilst being British and queuing in case a queue formed, it was every person for themselves and whilst there was no shoulder barging I was not as ‘British’ as I should have been but it worked!

I got through in what will be a short time (60 minutes) but am told, like everyone else it can be up to seven days before my bag reaches me on this tour. And that’s assuming it was on the plane in the first place!

And being the nerd I am I know exactly what’s in the case (having taken an inventory back in the UK). The question I have, dear reader, and you have 12 hours to help is – how many and of what do I buy tomorrow since I’ve only got the clothes I’m wearing now plus a couple of new T-Shirts I bought yesterday, just in case.

To any readers in NZ I am still showering etc so am squeaky clean (if increasingly unshaven) but my clothes need a launder and no! I’m not reprising the jeans adverts from the 1980s!

So if you been in similar circumstances and can advise, please do! How much of my missing wardrobe do I replace and bear in mind a complete replacement would need another suitcase and you can be sure that if I did, the original will turn up and I’m paying excess baggage on my remaining six flights this trip!

Sorry no pictures – just me getting so stressed that I never got this stressed at work and I’m supposed to be on a calming cricket tour.

I know I shouldn’t complain when compared to Turkey and elsewhere but modern life can be such a strain at times. And I’m writing this in the hotel restaurant sitting by myself surrounded by Valentine celebrators…commercialisation gone mad!

Back to better things tomorrow but what odds I don’t have my luggage by the end of the week?

@cricket51days