The phone rang shrilly echoing in the silent blackness. Startled, we sprang quickly into sitting positions. “What was that?” …..”Where were we?”

The immediate surroundings were strangely dark and unfamiliar.

A lonely little travel pillow and a pink toweling massage cushion

Turning on the light, we quickly looked all over. We could see our many belongings spilling across the room. There were small suit cases, toiletry bags, changes of clothes, jeans, a laptop, mobile phones, my beloved camera and even a couple of heavy overcoats (heavy overcoats in Singapore we must be nuts after all!!) There was a little pink toweling massager just in case one of us happened to suffer a cricked neck on the plane. You know the story…”I had to pack it just in case!”

And lastly there was still one…yes only just one, top-of-the-range, lonely little travel pillow laying on the desk in the room. You see my dearly beloved had already lost his this morning, even before we flew out of Brisbane. It had never been used, not once and it was gone already!!

Needless to say I had a few thoughts of my own about this!! Ah but, better to keep my health and keep them to myself, at least for now, I thought…and until the time is right!

We were still at Changi International Airport, in our amazingly comfortable little transit hotel, where we’d been staying for several hours while on route to our Grand European Sojourn in Europe. In the comfort of this little transit hotel’s peaceful surrounds we had finally been able to take a bit of a nap and had, in fact, dozed rather soundly for more than a couple of hours.

Orchid filled Changi International Airport

But, as always, time marches on. We would be leaving Singapore at around midnight for the last fourteen hour, long-haul part of our journey north-west through to Munich, Germany.

Time now to have a cuppa and then be on our way.

Within fifteen minutes we were off and running, juggling once again, our way too many belongings, plus tickets and passports. It wasn’t long before we were vowing adamantly to travel lighter… we just had so much hand luggage…never ever again!