Monday, October 19, 2009

Friday saw me viewing some of the town of Hobart, something I missed doing the last time I was here. I was here in the middle of winter and taught a four day workshop, coming in the day before and leaving the day after, and to my memory, it seems that I never actually left Lindisfarne, a suburb of Hobart, except to drive down to Richmond to see the old bridge.


My wonderful hosts, Liz and Rory O'Leary and their two daughters Liza and Susan, made sure that this didn't happen this time. We took off early with the intention of driving up Mt. Wellington, the 5000 ft peak which overlooks the city of Hobart. However, the cloud was down and so we decided to go the the signal station on Mt Nelson, which also has a small cafe. The views from Mt Nelson were breathtaking and I could only imagine what they'd be like from Mt. Wellington. We had coffee at the cafe and then descended with the intention of heading across the river to the exhibit which the Hobart group had mounted. Half way there, we noticed that the cloud had pretty much cleared off "the mountain" and so we made a dash for the summit. I managed to take some photos two thirds of the way up, but by the time we reached the top, the cloud had rolled in once again.


For lunch we made for the Cascade Brewery, apparently the oldest brewery in Australia, so that I could sample the local brew. Their pale ale was very flavorful, but a little too gassy for my taste. The lunch was excellent.


The evening was devoted to my lecture, but before that, the members of the group had a pot-luck buffet, with wine. A very pleasant start to the evening. The lecture went quite well, I think, although I had a few problems with the computer. Prue thought that it might be due to the vagaries of the electrical supply!


The first day of the workshop was held at the Friends' school thanks to the kind offices of Ailsa Ferguson, one of the teachers there and a stalwart of the calligraphy group. The first day (this being "Pen Manipulation Techniques") was devoted to how actually to manipulate the pen before going on to learning a Roman text hand. Most of the people in the class handled things very well and I was more than gratified at their application.


That evening, Liz, Rory and Liza took me to Mures Seafood Restaurant, right on the waterfront. The food was superb - I had a fish called BlueEye, which was new to me but very tasty, as well as one of my occasional martinis!


The second day of the workshop was spent on the capitals to go with the minuscules we had done the previous day. We swept through those with hardly time for a breath. This left me the last half of the afternoon to allow people to play a little, while I went around and did an alphabet for each member of the class.


In the evening, most of us got together for a meal at the Royal Thai Restaurant, where we were joined by His Honour Alan Blow, a Justice of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, and husband of Margaret Blow who was in the class. He was a wonderful dinner companion and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his stories about India, from whence he had just returned. A friend of his was part of a family having a wedding and Hindu weddings are immense in their scope! I also had to say a very sad farewell to Olive Bull, with whom I had stayed and then journeyed down to Hobart. I had such a wonderful time with her and Frank, that I hope that I will be allowed to return in the not too distant future.


Monday morning saw me also saying sad farewells to Liz, Rory and Liza. Rory drove me into town where I was to be interviewed for radio at the Hobart ABC affiliate. My interviewer there was Christopher Lawrence, and I have to say that he did a masterful job. Of course, I haven't heard the interview to hear how badly I sounded!


Alison O'May picked me up there to run me to the airport but we made a side trip down to Richmond once more, to go view the bridge and pluck a couple of peppercorns. Ah, the aroma from peppercorns fresh off the tree is just fabulous.


I was dropped at the airport by Alison, where my day rapidly went downhill. If you're ever in the position to fly Virgin Blue, go Qantas, JetStar, Air Australia, anything but Virgin. I went to the desk to drop my bag where I was informed that by a rather hostile young woman named Leesa, that I could not check my bag right through to Canberra, even though I had a ticket. When I remonstrated and asked why, she said: It's the rules! When I questioned her further, she rather rudely called down to the next desk: "You deal with this one", and stalked off. I was informed that they were unable to link two separate tickets and that I would have to pick up my bag at baggage claim and recheck it. I was also informed that I would have to pay an excess baggage charge of $50 for being 4.8Kgs over the limit.


I asked to speak to a supervisor but was told there was no-one available. I was also informed that the flight was running a half hour late, which would give me even less time to pick up my bag and recheck it. I was furious!!


When the plane finally rolled in 40 minutes late, I knew that there was very little chance of my making my connection in Melbourne. My mood was further blackened, when on board I asked for water and was told I had to pay $2.50. For a small bottle of water. If Tricky Dicky Branson needs the money so much for his adventures into space, I suggest that he not try to steal the money out of his passengers' pockets but look elsewhere for his funding. Needless to say, I shall do my best to avoid Virgin Airlines in the future; life is too short to deal with this sort of crap!!


On arrival in Melbourne, still 40 minutes late, I dashed to the baggage claim to get my bag which took ten minutes to arrive. I finally got to the check in bag drop where a delightful young lady got me to a desk so that I could immediately check my bag and then hightail it down to the gate and onto the plane. From picking up my bag to check-in, through security, to the gate and onto the plane took me ten minutes!! I was exhausted, but, I'm happy to say, I arrived in Canberra on time.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Charles,
    Great work so far ... wait 'til you hit the Gold Coast where I'll be seeing you and raising you a martini or two! I hope all my Canberra friends behave in class! Give everyone my love, oh and do visit Parliament House there is a treat there not far along from the Magna Carta.

    Gemma
    ... don't you just hate airlines ...

    ReplyDelete