Thanks to Scott, an old friend of mine: he collected me at Melbourne airport, and gave me somewhere to sleep for the night - the floor of his tiny apartment! I slept extremely well, which says something for ancient monastic practices...
This Sunday morning, he gave me a lift to St Aloysius for Mass, where I arrived during the Gloria. (For the record, it was a Missa Cantata, with Mass XI and Credo IV, the latter of which I'd not heard before; the choir sang the Offertory text in polyphony, sang part of the Agnus Dei in organum, and O sacrum convivium as a Communion motet.)
After Mass, we all repaired to the Balaclava Hotel for lunch: it was good to see David, Jennifer, Justin, and Frs Tattersall and McDaniels. Lunch over, I continued to chat with Justin (whose flat is nearby), until Br Paul, one of my Dominican friends, arrived: he'd very kindly offered to catch up for old times' sake, and ended up driving me to the airport.
Back to rainy Tasmania... I had a very pleasant seat right up the front of the aircraft, and enjoyed chatting to the nice lady sitting next to me. Upon arriving, the whole family welcomed me, and we had a celebratory dinner at my sister's home.
Once I finally got back to my place, and unpacked, I made one unfortunate discovery: I left my wallet in the seat pocket of the plane that brought me back to Launceston!
I am now waiting to contact the lost baggage department of Virgin Blue airlines - I pray that my wallet will have been found by the cabin crew...
******
UPDATE: My wallet has turned up in the lost baggage depot at Sydney! So it did a little more travelling yester-day.
It was good to have you over here. I will get to a long email soon!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the aeroplane and the wallet.
Also sorry about not catching up that afternoon, I ended up doing the Rorshac test. Fascinating really.
Enjoy civilisation and normality!