After complaining to the Apple after-sales department, they have now told me that my computer was shipped to TNT yesterday and I can expect it by 20th, so that's a big improvement and just shows that it doesn't always do to just accept what one is told. We'll see if it really does arrive on time.
Has anybody tried downloading the parallel operating system? The article I read in the Wall Street Journal said means you can have both operating systems running in parallel and apparently switch between them just as you can between user accounts in Windows without shutting down?
Looking forward to getting it and hopefully getting it all set up before I travel again. It'll be my first Apple, so I hope it will be gentle with me because, being an old codger, I'm not as computer-literate as some of you who mwere brought up with them