New Zealand

Thursday saw us in Sydney airport First Class lounge as guests of the younger generation of the family, who travel the globe on a fairly regular basis as part of their jobs. I now have an insane longing to travel everywhere First Class, for the lounge is huge, quiet, and a world away from the rowdy, crowded airport realms I’ve been used to. A small piece of card marked Express allows the holder to magically by-pass the monster queues and I didn’t feel in the least guilty in doing so. Staff treat first-class passengers with deference – I’ve never been called ‘Ma’am’ – pronounced correctly to rhyme with ‘ham’ – so often since I left the Singapore Airlines flight at the end of October. Which reminds me that we travelled Heathrow to Singapore on the new A380 double decker (Economy Class, naturally!) the day before one such plane limped back to Singapore with a cracked engine casing. We are due to fly back to Singapore via the same aeroplane, but since they’re all still grounded, we may well be on a 747. A pity, because the new plane is beautifully smooth and quiet.