Yesterday, Tiki received a telex message which stated that her parents had decided to bypass Fiji and, therefore, would be flying directly home from San Francisco, with their arrival in Sydney now scheduled for twenty-five past six this morning. Having learned of this fact, I had busily set to and mowed their extensive lawns and generally tidied the grounds until after the street lights came on.
We awoke to the alarm at 5.00 a.m., but in my stupor I pushed down upon the knob that is the top of the aerial on my transistor radio and momentarily could not fathom why the alarm continued to ring. It was an icy six degrees Celsius when Tiki drove to the airport, arriving at twenty-five minutes to seven.
Qantas’s flight, QF4, from San Francisco had landed early, at six o’clock, a fact we had already been made aware of by listening to 2KY. We waited for the pair to emerge from customs and while singer, Kamahl, did, the couple we were waiting to greet, did not. Finally, at eight o’clock, I approached a counter that belonged to the airline and was informed that not only had they not been booked to fly on this morning’s flight, their names were not present on the manifest for tomorrow’s either!
This afternoon, on this extremely cold day, Tiki expressed to me that the telex had not been worded clearly and that her parents were not actually departing from San Francisco until today and, therefore, should now arrive in Sydney at twenty-five past six on Sunday morning.
At seven o’clock, much of this evening’s edition of “Willesee” is devoted to an interview conducted with Sir Zelman Cowen. Sir Zelman, who is of the Jewish faith, is Australia’s new Governor-General. The series, “Doctor At Sea”, follows and, at eight o’clock, tonight’s serving of another British comedy, “Mother Makes Five” ensues. We watched about half of the film, “The Great Waltz”. It centres upon the younger of the two Austrian composers who each bore the name of Johann Strauss. Horst Buchholz, Nigel Patrick and Rossano Brazzi are listed amongst the film’s cast.
Today marks that on which a punter must have a minimum of fifty cents in order to place a bet with the N.S.W. T.A.B. The twenty-five cent win and place unit is no more!