Monday, May 21st .....

I feel as if I’ve misplaced three weeks of my life.  In other words, I have a lacuna.  As you can see, I did manage to learn a new word.  Apparently, it’s derived from Latin and means a gap or cavity just like the three weeks since I wrote something for my blog.

If you think that not much has happened in the past three week (or 19 days, in fact) you are right.  Marilyn was busy with the conference right up until Saturday, May 5^th which was the day of the final session.  I had been asked to be the official photographer so I had to be there on that day as well.  There was a bit of consternation when it was noted that one of the guest speakers hadn’t turned up.  I was given the organiser’s phone and sent outside to watch for her. 

You couldn’t write a script with this dilemma but she and her driver had gone to the wrong destination, driven in through a gate and returned to find the gate had been locked behind them.  Strange but true!  I went off to see what I could do, expecting that I we might find a side gate but no such luck.  ‘If you give me a leg up,’ said the fifty-ish academic, ‘I’ll climb over the gate.’  As  you can see, she certainly doesn't look the athletic type.

Her driver hitched her up and I caught her as she fell.  She didn’t even take off her coat.  We arrived at the conference, with 7 minutes to spare.  I would have been happy to let the driver sort himself out but I had to go back and ring the security company to open the gate. 

 Tomorrow, we set off for our long-awaited trip to Japan.  First leg is the 11.15am flight to Sydney but the real trip begins when we join the 3.15pm flight with Singapore Airlines.