Before I’d headed out the bed linen had gone into the washing machine, so once I was cashed up again it made sense to head back and switch the sheets and pillowslips to the drier. An hour or so would probably look after that side of things and in the meantime I reckoned I might as well take the accumulated bottles, cardboard and such down to the recycling bin.
The Nephew had pointed out the presence of a handy shopping trolley where he’d stashed most of the stuff headed in that direction, and if I’d been inclined to do so I could have arranged things so that two trips were necessary.
That would have been useful, but when I couldn’t manage to get back into the building through the back door I was glad I hadn’t. Still, the walk around the building to the main entrance killed a bit more time.
By this stage, it was around nine-fifteen.
In other circumstances you’d probably be looking at a ten o’clock checkout, so killing half an hour wouldn't be a major issue, but here there was a good three and a half hour interval before I could head out the door.
Still, I had plenty to read, and with the Martin Cruz Smith Tatiana done and dusted I’d moved onto George Pelecanos’ What It Was. A good read, but it’s difficult to focus when you’ve got itchy feet.
And that, of course, is the other part of the problem. As concert time approaches you start wanting to get things moving in that direction, and in those circumstances a ten o’clock checkout is kind of helpful.
I suppose I could have headed out an hour or two earlier than planned since the train services operate at half-hourly intervals.
That would have landed Hughesy and The Black Monster on the ground at Central at 1:29, 12:59 or 12:29 with the issue of what to do if the hotel room wasn’t quite ready to receive its guest.
In the end, I waffled through the next couple of hours in much the same way as I waffled through the preceding couple of paragraphs, headed off just before noon and caught the wrong bus.
Well, not exactly the wrong bus, but the one that reached Helensvale Station by the scenic route rather than the familiar service that takes you past Harbour Town. It gave me a chance to scope out the northern end of the new light rail (tram) line, which I thought was supposed to go all the way to Helensvale Station.
There was no sign of a tram line in the vicinity when the bus eventually arrived, so I guess that must be part of a subsequent extension of the route between the new Gold Coast Hospital and Broadbeach.
It’s around an hour on the train from Helensvale to Central, and with the onboard free WiFi the time passed quickly enough. It wasn’t too long after two when I was filling out the check in paperwork, and that gave me a good two and a half your window to rest up before I headed off to the final concert in the run of four.