Fisher1

We bottled it. We booked stopovers.

Visions of 'Zombies R us' arriving in Sydney unmanned (unwomaned?) us despite our brave talk of economies. Full retreat from straight through flight idea guaranteed by daughter's tactful 'it's a bit full on' (weasel words for 'My parents are completely barking')

We were all out for comfort now, and abandoned the internet before our eyes dropped out, visiting Thomas Cook, a random choice based on its proximity to Sainsburys.

Would you believe two reasonably priced flights including stopovers? Okay then, no more expensive than the prices we found on the web - and they used their own phones!

Did we want to reserve our seats now? Yes, yes, we are on a roll, let's organise the seats.

Hmmm, rows of three and four, hmmm what about those two at the front .... what's the letter 'p' for? You pay extra to reserve those? Okay, let's go for it, pay a bit extra for leg room.

That's thirty pounds each. For each leg. (Each leg of the journey not each leg on our bodies, keep up!)

Long pause.

Significant amount of mumbling down the phone by nice Lucy who could do with a coffee by the look of her.

The internet won't let her take the payment.

I don't understand, I thought they had special computers at travel agents..... the ones with a regular shop and chairs and stuff anyway.....