Mike's musings

Flying off

Took the 0930 at Tilbury-juxta-Clare this morning - not preaching, but I did play the hymns on the organ. A nice single-manual (no pedals) little instrument, though it didn't help that the B flat below middle C came off during the second hymn. Luckily, the third and fourth didn't have B flats, and I chose a voluntary at the end which didn't, either.

We went out to the George in Cavendish for lunch, and had a lovely meal. There was a family with a 10 week old and a 2 and a half year old, both of whom Jo was very interested in. The management's pretty new, and we've been very pleased with the place so far. It was good to have some time together before I headed off.

The car came at a little before 1700, and we were off to Heathrow. The driver swore - and, to use an old term, blasphemed more than I like - but the drive went OK. I managed to get some sleep, too, and arrived nice and early for the flight. For some reason, my ticket was booked as Mr Bursell Michael, so for both the out and the return I had to check in as Mr Michael. Somewhat confusing. The flight left 2115, on time, with me in World Business Class (the equivalent of Virgin's Premium Economy). Flight was OK, but I pretty much lost Monday: 12 hours 30 minutes, and Singapore's 8 hours ahead.

On the flight, I was very good, and wrote the presentation for Tuesday before going to sleep. I put the laptop into hibernate. When I woke up, the presentation (and, in fact, all the data on the hard disk) was gone. The same "transient" fault that had appeared when I came back from Nice. So I gave up, and started to read Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. I really like his stuff, although this one's a little strange.