Hurry Up and Wait...

When things don't go as planned how do you react? Sometimes I get angry and, if you're in range, you might hear all about the earth-shattering circumstances that have caused my frown, red face and sullen expression. But, I think I'm pretty lucky, 'cause over the years I've been able to develop a few coping skills to deal with frustrations, and as I get older I find myself developing and applying a more fatalistic attitude to life. So now I just shrug my shoulders and think: "Oh well". Then I try to dig the funny bits out of the situation. There's always some to find. Like today, when we had to change an accommodation booking.

To explain...

When your local DHB (in our case Hawkes Bay) arranges a meeting with the MDT (Multi-Disciplinary Team) in Auckland they give you a choice of ways to get there. If you want to fly, they'll arrange and pay for flights. If you want to drive they'll arrange and pay for accommodation and give you a fistful of fuel vouchers. In our case we decided to drive. So, we were booked in to a motel in Newmarket - close to the hospital - for the Thursday night before the meeting on Friday. Great we thought. We can do some other stuff around this meeting. so...

• We arranged a few nights accommodation on the North Shore so we could say Happy Birthday to our eldest daughter and play with the grandkids for a couple of days. 
• We arranged an overnight stay in Tauranga on the way back, 
• We arranged to stay with relies in Gisborne for a couple of days. 

Let's make a week of it, we thought. We locked in all the plans and bookings last night.

This morning, we get a call from the hospital to say our MDT meeting has been postponed for a week because our favorite surgeon can't be there on the 25th. So everything has to go out a week.

Not to much to smile about so far, right?

That changed when we started changing bookings. The accommodation we booked in Tauranga was through Booking.com and it was non-refundable. So, we looked at turning our planned road trip on it's head and doing it backwards so we wouldn't forfeit the accommodation cost. But, we couldn't make that work, so I searched through the Booking.com website but it kept telling me that the only option I had was to cancel the booking, which would cost us the full room rate. Looked like we didn't have a choice. 

Then I thought - let's go old school - and I rang the motel. Amanda, the receptionist was very apologetic and accommodating (sorry) and told us we would have to ring Booking.com and gave us the phone number. She then told us that when we talked to Booking.com they would then phone the motel and ask if the booking could be changed. She would tell them it could, and Booking.com would then make the change and send us an updated confirmation. Wonderful! So I rang Booking.com using our home phone. 

The phone was answered by the amazing Grace (sorry) who was only too pleased to change the booking for us, but before she could she would have to ring the motel and ask them if the change could be made. Could I please  hold while she made the phone call? Sure, I said. No problem.

My mobile rang - it was Grace. 

Oops!!

While Grace was busy being flustered and apologetic for ringing the wrong number Denise was cracking up. I was following close behind and as soon as Grace stopped the call to ring the right number we both had a good chuckle at Grace's expense. Sorry Grace.

So, the upshot of all  this is that everything's been put back a week. Now all we have to do is find something to keep  us distracted. The front fence needs painting. Maybe I'll do that - or not.

Thanks for the laugh, Lee. Keep 'em coming.

Now I think we need a joke from an Owens.

Be kind, and laugh a lot.