With apologies to Jane Austen

My wife having an unaccustomed opportunity to cast aside the cares and pressures of academic life for a week, we decided to plan a brief excursion, our daughters being otherwise occupied, the elder in professional pursuits, the younger travelling in the sub-continent, leaving us free to choose our destination, uninfluenced by the requirements normally placed upon us by the desires of our offspring.

My wife had never had the opportunity to visit A________, the city of churches, parks and good food and wine while my visits there, being of a professional nature, were never of long duration, and therefore did not permit me sufficient leisure to experience much of that city beyond the confines of an office and an hotel. And so, after the briefest of deliberations, we decided upon a visit to that city, with an excursion to sample the wine and food of one of the valleys famous for such produce. Hotels were booked, flights arranged.

Very early on the morning of our departure, when the world was dark and still, I was awakened by a message from our gardener warning of inclement weather at our destination. Undeterred by such news, we packed our portmanteaux, and made our way towards our point of embarkation. En route, we received further communication from our sister-in-law many miles away in deepest Queensland with a message of the same import. The inclemency of the weather was clearly of a serious nature for it to have reached as far as the northernmost point of Queensland, a region not generally especially concerned with affairs beyond its narrow confines.

We reached the airport without further incident or alarum, and established ourselves comfortably to await departure of our aircraft. An announcement encouraged us to board as soon as practicable, indicating that an attempt to depart, and subsequently hopefully to land, at our destination was to be essayed before the weather became so inclement as to prevent safe landing. Upon boarding, and in a laudable but potentially misplaced attempt to reassure us, the pilot, while warning of tempestuous weather at our destination, announced that, were our attempt to land at our destination prove unsuccessful, we had sufficient fuel to permit safe return to our point of departure.

As we approached the airport at A________, the flight became very turbulent indeed, and the weather rather violent. Our valiant pilot indicated that he would strive, to the extent possible within his ability, to attempt a landing, which he did immediately, while at the same time endeavouring to assuage our palpable concerns by assuring us that were we to be unsuccessful in the attempt, we would ascend once more and “consider our options”. This last statement puzzled me somewhat, as it contained the implication that as passengers we were to form part of a collective decision making process. As time appeared to be of the essence in this consideration of options, I was somewhat unclear as to how such a consensual decision was to be reached in the brief period of time available for it to be made. Such speculation proved to be somewhat idle, however, as we landed successfully, if somewhat firmly and not without a certain degree of lateral movement occasioned by the considerable volume of precipitation.

As soon as we had collected our baggage, we made our way towards to row of waiting taxicabs, only partly protected by a rather paltry awning, designed more for protection from the sun than from the ferocious storm, the nature of which brought to mind the equatorial cloudbursts that were a constant feature of our life in Singapore.

Upon arrival at the hotel, the weather had abated sufficiently for us, once unpacked and refreshed from the rigours of our journey, to essay a brief perambulation around the centre of the city, which unfortunately was not showing itself to particular advantage given the prevailing weather conditions. Cold and rather wet, we postponed further examination until we were more rested, and accordingly we returned to the warmth and comfort of the hotel, making our way to the refuge of our room by means of the passenger lift. But a minute had elapsed since our egress from that mechanism and having just entered our room, when it, and as were later to discover, the hotel, the city and indeed the entire state of which A________ is the capital city were plunged into complete darkness. We were fortunate indeed to have reached the safety of our room before the catastrophic power failure, the nature of which only began to emerge over the ensuing period of time.

We were, however, confronted with somewhat of a problem. Given that the absence of electricity affected more than illumination, but all motive power that relied on that source, the preparation and cooking of food, and, as were later to discover the availability of water required to compete one’s ablutions, we were to a considerable extent trapped for an indeterminate period of time within the penumbral confines of our room.

By some miracle of science unknown to me we were able to establish telephone communication with the reception desk, and accordingly I made my way down to the ground floor by means of the fire exit stairs to discuss the situation with the management of the hotel. Of the several options for emergency descent that were available to me, I chose the one most convenient to our room but, as it transpired, the least convenient for access to the lobby, as it expelled me directly into the street, where all was gloom and it was raining very heavily indeed.

Having somewhat damply reached the shelter of the hotel lobby I was able, in conversation with those in authority to discover that the absence of electricity would be of unknown, but probably significant, duration given the dramatic and widespread nature of the incident. It was made known to me that that refreshments were available in the restaurant, so, accompanied by a member of staff, I immediately ascended four flights of more convenient stairs to collect my wife and escort her with all possible dispatch to the restaurant, before what refreshments that were available were exhausted by the press of hungry guests. The provisions on offer were, of necessity, cold and rather meagre in both range and quantity, although beverages were rather more plentifully available. The room was quite full, and as the late afternoon turned to evening and natural light dimmed, the room was illuminated by the occasional emergency light and candles set upon every table. As time passed, and a greater quantity of alcoholic beverages were consumed, the atmosphere became rather more boisterous and a certain camaraderie born of shared adversity became evident among those of us stranded by the incident.

Unfortunately, over that period of bonhomie, the battery power to the emergency lighting began to fail, and the party became increasingly enveloped in darkness. At that stage we considered it prudent to return to our quarters before total darkness fell. This we did, once again accompanied by a member of staff. Having no other means of diversion available to us and requiring to maintain sufficient power to our mobile telephones to deal with any further emergency that may arise, we made our way to bed at the somewhat early hour of eight o’clock. We had hardly settled to slumber when, after one or two short bursts of illumination, power was restored after some four- and one-half hours. Inconvenient though this failure of electrical power was to us, we were considerably more fortunate that those inhabiting outlying districts whose period without power extended for 24 hours or more.

The night passed without further incident and having breakfasted, we decided to take advantage of a break in the weather to take a turn about the town: the weather remained dull, overcast and cold, but the rain has ceased, albeit temporarily. While it is indeed a city amply provided with parkland, the effect of the prolonged and heavy rain prevented a more than cursory examination of its attractions. We decided to explore the city’s cultural district: a small yet poignant Migration Museum and a rather more extensive Art Gallery commanded our attention. The Gallery’s works were not entirely without merit, but held little of great renown and was somewhat eccentrically curated, as least to this observer. Nonetheless, at the very least it provided temporary shelter from the elements. We lunched frugally and then set out off in search of an almond croissant, a delicacy to which my wife is especially partial. However, it appears that no-one else in that city shares her enthusiasm for that toothsome pastry, as a reasonably thorough search of the city’s bakeries proved to be fruitless.

My wife having some academic chores to perform we returned to our lodgings, and while she busied herself with matters pedagogical, I spent a pleasant hour or two enjoying the elegant and crisp prose of Miss Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (an author who has been an inspiration for my own humble efforts). We dined adequately, and were abed reasonably early, in anticipation of our planned visit to the renowned wine-growing district of the B____ Valley.

The next day dawned wet and cold, hardly a harbinger of a pleasant excursion. Nevertheless, we made our way on foot to the point of departure: a journey of but ten minutes or so. We were unaware that this point was but one of a series of collection points, and we were, in consequence, to discover that a significant period of time was to elapse before we were to finally strike out valleywards, having spent some three-quarters of an hour in a circuitous and reasonably thorough examination of the city’s squares and thoroughfares.

We eventually left the city behind us and plunged northwards through a series of rather gimcrack and nondescript suburbs before finally reaching open country. Our first destination was reached without incident; would that were true of our second. The heavy rain and subsequent flooding had closed several roads, necessitating a number of lengthy detours, although we did finally reach our intended destination, passing over several swollen rivers, including one where a small group of sheep were trapped on a small islet that was inexorably shrinking as the waters rose, almost certainly sending them to an early and watery grave. Undeterred by this illustration of Nature’s indifference, we lunched, some of our party rather insouciantly on lamb, and after visiting another winery, made our way homewards. While the weather prevented the valley from showing itself in the best of all possible lights, it is equally true that one cannot imagine it being particularly picturesque or pleasing to the eye even in more advantageous conditions, it being rather dull, flat and broad, lacking the topographical advantages of the Mosel and the Rhine, or indeed our own Y_____ valley or M________ peninsula.

As we approached the urban sprawl of A_______ passing factories, warehouses, car showrooms, pizza parlours, hot chicken shops and shopping malls, the rain resumed with considerable vigour, and was so persistent that by the time we reached the coach terminal it was descending with some force. Despite these unpropitious meteorological  conditions, when confronted with choice between suffering a significant delay before we departed once more for ‘home’ as we awaited the arrival of other arriving charabancs so as to collect their passengers for what would doubtless be a repeat of our earlier circumnavigation of the city, we decided to walk, rain notwithstanding, back to our lodgings, a journey of but a brisk ten minutes compared to our leisurely circumnavigation of three-quarters of an hour earlier that day.

Before embarking on a search for a suitable hostelry in which to dine, we decided to attempt to gather further information about the events of the preceding period of time, during which we, A_______ and its environs had been subjected to unprecedented extremes of weather. As we were doing so an item caught our attention. Earlier that day we had passed through the substantial town of G________, whose river of the same name was in full spate and imminent danger of engulfing the town, and was now indeed in the process of doing so, leading to the evacuation of a sizable number of its inhabitants. Thankfully, the rest of the day passed without incident and having dined, we returned to our hotel for what transpired to be an uneventful and restful night’s sleep.

The next day, that of our departure, dawned bright and sunny, and we decided to take advantage of what was forecast to be but a day’s respite before further tempestuous weather returned once more.  A pleasant stroll took us beside the banks of the swollen River T_____ towards the town weir, where a considerable number of the town’s population were gathered to observe, and make photographic records of, the tumultuous roar of water through the weir. Clearly such events provide the excitement that appears to be somewhat lacking in the city and its attractions. While the weather showed A______ in a more favourable light than heretofore, I fear such improvement was insufficient to excite a desire to return. We were relieved therefore to pack our bags, take a taxicab to the airport and return to the calm and tranquillity of our home.

-FINIS-