Flight QR909  Zone 4 ( this is us in seats 51D & E) is not Business or 1st Class, its Economy, its us, and Zone 4 is the last to board, but the Qatar staff are great, the plane is nice. It’s a bit later than 7am when we get off the ground though.

We have 2 babies in the row in front of us but so far the little tackers are not screaming. Neither are the mother and father, very unAustralian behaviour.

Breakfast includes an offer of alcohol, odd for an Arabic airline, so in defference to my belief of not being pissed by morning tea time I sip apple juice with my banana bread, yoghurt and cup of tea.

Next I watch the movie “Operation Mincemeat” , a true story (I’m assuming they added a fictitious love story and some conflict for effect) of the British misleading the Germans in WWII prior to the Normandy landings. My headphone plug ( plane side – a negative for Qatar but only a minor issue) is shot and crackles badly so I revert to a Blues Playlist I have ready on my phone with obscure and great (my view only) blues songs and singers. This includes artists like; All Them Witches, Billy D & The Hudoos, Beth Hart, Joe Boamassa,  Chis Beard, Champion JackDupree, Gary Clarke Jnr, Jim Suhler & Monkeybeat and others. I blow up my pillow, turn thr noise cancelling on, turn the music up loud, recline ( just a little) and get into the groove with my eyes closed. 14-15 hours is a fair bit of music.

Nearly 10 hours in and the passengers are still pretty civil, hardly any babies or kids are crying or obnoxious. Other than the length of the trip there isn’t anything to whine about. Yet.

Finally arrived in Doha, it’s a mess, the staff are trying hard to sort out who goes on or who is staying in Doha. I think they are trying to get us permission from Qatar immigration to take us into a hotel in Doha, but the are people everywhere and one of the Qatar airline guys has our boarding passes, our passports and our vaccine certificates. If he’s not back soon The Navigator is going to hunt him down and kill him.

I’ll update later