Strap yourselves in people. This one’s a long one!

My head hurts. We just finished watching the movie Predestination. Have you seen it? It’s a bit like watching Inception; with constant thinking and re-thinking what you thought to be true; analysing and over-analysing; jumping from here to there and back again; and have realisation after revelation, only to be completely wrong in your assumptions until the last second of the movie.

It was pretty good actually. But yes, my head hurts from all of the thinking.

So what does any of this have to do with the Queen? I’ll get to that.

On a side note, I need to stop writing blog posts in my head when I’m nowhere near a computer. Whenever I do that, the actual blog post is always a disappointment, as I invariably forget all the good stuff that came off the cuff (ie in the shower, on one of my walks, etc etc) and am left with a jumbled mess of incoherent thoughts. Ironically, I pretty much nailed this last paragraph which I thought up in the shower 10 minutes ago.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Let me tell you a little secret. Actually, it’s no secret at all. I’ve been slipping a bit with my organisation skills. In the last year, I have had three pretty major travel arrangement stuff-ups, and I’m so over it. There was the time when Jetstar didn’t let me fly at 34 weeks pregnant with Darby without a doctors’ clearance for this trip (I can’t believe I didn’t blog about that! I think I was just over it), then there was the great wrong date booking of March 2015.

And now, a new winner. You see, I’ve been meaning to renew mine and Hubs’ passports for years. Yes, you read that right. Mine expired in 2011 and Hubs’ expired in 2010. It’s been on my to-do list all that time, but I just never got around to it, and never really had the need. Until just over two weeks ago. Hubs was told that there was a place in a course in Wellington NZ available due to a cancellation, and would he like it. Well yes he would!

Two weeks was plenty of time to get a passport! Except that we needed a signature of someone who had known Hubs for over a year. Thankfully, Friday week ago, my dear cousin was coming to visit, so we intercepted her at the airport here on the Friday night, so Hubs could attend his appointment to get the passport on Saturday morning.

You’re still waiting for the Queen, right? Or maybe you’ve figured it out already?

We were still being assured at this stage that the passport would arrive in time. I had booked Hubs’ flights, accommodation, paid for his course, booked his domestic flight from Wellington to Auckland to visit his bro and sister-in-law (helloo!!!!!) before returning home. We were set, but just to make sure, Hubs paid the extra $110 for “priority post” so nothing was left to chance.

By Friday, it still hadn’t arrived, but we were told it was on the way. And then Monday was a public holiday. But it was okay. We still had until 1pm on Tuesday, as Hubs’ flight to Brizzie left at 1:30pm. So while Hubs was at work on Tuesday, we waited for the postman to deliver the goods.

By midday, we were getting nervous. By 12:30, Hubs had arrived home and we were panicking just little (a LOT!) And then we spotted him down the road. I got into the car and raced (drove carefully) to find the postman. I pulled him up and enquired about the passport. He didn’t even have our street’s mail!!! It was at the depot, but being the kind soul he was, he said that he would meet us at the depot in 15 minutes to get it for us.

I flew back and picked up Hubs, and we felt sweet relief. We were going to make it after all! I was just so excited as the adrenaline pumped through my veins. We met the postie when he advised and he set about finding the registered parcel.

Except there was nothing there.

Devastation/frustration/fury/disappointment/bewilderment… you name it, I was feeling it. I was defeated. But Hubs had one trick left up his sleeve. If he could get onto someone in Brisbane, maybe just maybe he could still get some kind of paperwork that would get him there. After being on hold, and being cut-off, he had to make a split decision: Call in quits or get on that plane to Brizzie and try his luck.

He chose the latter. But to no avail.

Too bad, so sad was pretty much what he was met with. So he spent the next 5 hours at the airport, waiting for a return flight to Rocky.

So on Monday we celebrated the Queen’s birthday with a public holiday. And I can pretty much guarantee that the passport would have arrived in time, had it just been a normal Monday. You know, since it arrived today.

So that is why I blame the Queen.