And so we reach the part of the fortnight where there's not a whole lot of action on the horizon.
Of course, having just typed that in the hour-long hiatus between seeing Madam onto the train and checking out of the Rendezvous, something will probably rear it's ugly head. If it does there's a certain degree of room to manoeuvre and deal with it.
It wasn't supposed to go down that way. When the initial tour announcement was made you couldn't help looking at the schedule and noting the spaces that could be filled with a second, and possibly a third, show in both Sydney and Melbourne. They might have been able to fit in an extra night in Brisbane, but it would have been a tight fit.
As it turned out, a second in Melbourne was as far as that side of it went.
Extra shows in Sydney (which, surprisingly, either didn't sell out or took its time doing so) went to a winery in the Hunter, and so, rather than hanging on at the Rendezvous and sampling the. Sydney lifestyle! Hughesy is off to the Unit in Southport, where Nephew Number One will have the dubious pleasure of old uncle Hughesy's company.
Not that I expect to be too disruptive, you understand? There's a swag of typing and writing to be caught up on, and I don't mind the prospect of extensive sleep-in action.
But, in any case, with around half an hour to go until checkout time, it's time to cast the memory back over the backlog.
The transfer from hotel to airport ran smoothly once the extortionate fare to the Domestic terminal had been paid ($6.20 return out to Allphones for the Springsteen concert, $16.40 one way to the airport) and I arrived well before the two hour check the bags in window, which caused a minor delay in proceedings, but nothing that time wouldn't fix.
Having checked in, I treated myself to the regulation big breakfast, headed for Departure Lounge 49 and killed the rest of the time till departure with the iPad in reading mode. Boarding et cetera proceeded as scheduled, and I finished off Martin Cruz Smith's Tatiana in the departure lounge, which brought me back to the Sylvie Simmons biography of Leonard Cohen once the seat belt sign had Been switched off.
Back on the ground at the Gold Coast the main priority was catching the bus to The Unit in Southport, a procedure that turned out to be reasonably painless once the lengthy queue had made their way aboard the conveyance. I'd had my doubts about capacity and luggage space, but once I was aboard there was room for the Black Monster in one of the luggage spaces at the front, a seat for Hughesy right beside that, and a switch of buses at Surfers to get me to Southport.
I'm not sure whether the 777 is the only bus that pulls into the terminal at the airport, but the switch wasn't really an issue.
Into Downtown Southport