The Last Minute Sprint

You can all draw a collective sigh of relief. I found a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in Johor. Yes, at Tesco. It was the most beautiful place in the world. Unlike the grotty Carrefour we tried before Tesco which was full of people and rubbish and sadly bereft of Deathly Hallows. But these things, as my sister Jackie would say, are sent to try us.

We must be patient.

We must bear up under the weight of these crosses.

We must forgive them for they know not what they do.

I don't know if I've ever shared it with you (though you may have gathered as much from reading these desolate pages) but the last-minute sprint is kind of a Jacobs family speciality.

Which is why, when my Mum was due to fly off to England over the weekend, we did everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) last minute. Last minute shopping for odds and ends. Packing of bags barely hours before plane was due to take off. Writing out the immigration cards to get into Singapore very very late. (In a bid to be helpful, I tried to write out Mum's cards. After ruining two, I gave it up as a bad job. My Chubby brother assumed it (because he said, Mum, left to her own devices, would take hours to fill up said cards). He ruined two cards as well, but went on to third. And the third, like the morning, brought joy.

I morphed into bossy self, packing Mum's bags for her, insisting she take a shower and have a foot massage and get some rest before flying off. Of course, being so competent that I surprised everyone, I managed to leave out two of Jackie's presents in the general bustle of packing.

And unfortunately for all concerned, there was Harry Potter to be contended with. He stared at me from the dust jacket:

Jennifer, I will not be ignored!

I was helpless against the siren call.

Which meant that I was torn between pretended competence (look, leave it all to me, I'll get it sorted) and moments of utter absorption when I started to read and my eyes glazed over and I didn't hear what anyone around me was saying. I got to page 43 and felt guilty, and so sprinted upstairs, two stairs at a time to help the big M.

Her room was, in a word, bersepah. There were clothes lying everywhere, and various bottles, and odds and ends from other centuries...it was every packer's nightmare. I emptied her already half packed back:

Tsk, tsk, tsk, what were you thinking...we need to put other stuff on the base and where's your Lomotil again?

While Mum moved leisurely from side to side, emptied her handbag to get rid of anything remotely liquid or sharp (you know they confiscated Auntie Jega's lipstick?)
examined her various documents, asked if she should take Aussie dollars (since she was not going to Australia, I didn't think so), and asked me not to get so stressed.

We took off for Changi and made it there with simply hours to spare. Unkley was waiting for us, playing with his new phone. Ivan, who went off to park the car, joined us shortly, playing with HIS new phone. My face was buried between the pages of Harry Potter.

So much for a send off by a loving family. Poor Mum was tired, but said she fully intended to sleep on the plane, if she didn't decide to watch a movie or read a book instead.

Did I tell you that Jackie upgraded her to business class?

It being my Mummy, this was a federal offence.

Jackie just SMS-ed to say the Mums arrived safely.

I am sure we will be entertained with business class stories for month to come.