back in Blighty

Thirty-eight hours of travel from door-to-door later and we got home yesterday afternoon. I am still sooo tired that I don't remember much from the journey apart from a few highlights.

1. on the plane from the Sunshine Co@st to Sydney there was a child in the row behind us who screamed. She screamed when her brother got the window seat. She screamed when her mother fastened her seatbelt. She screamed (for joy this time?) when she was offered a sweet. She screamed for 2 minutes straight for no discernible reason and then her brother swapped seats with her and stopped screaming and instead took up kicking the seat in front of her. Which of course was mine.
2. on the 14-hour flight from Sydney to Dub@i there was a man across the aisle from us who kept his neighbouring passengers...amused...for roughly six hours by singing along to the music playing on his headphones. Every now and then he would hit a particularly high note and his immediate neighbour jumped a mile in her seat, poor thing. He seemed to have an inordinate amount of B@rry White on his playlist, and had clearly been a fan of the tv show "All.y McBe@l" because I swear he once did a bit of this dance in his seat (with his eyes closed).
3. we had a few hours to pass in Sydney so took the train from the airport to Circle Qu@y and checked to see that the bridge and the opera house were still how we remembered them.
4. they were :-)
5. I watched "Shutt£r Island" on the flight from Dub@i to London and it gave me nightmares last night.
   

last days

So on Saturday morning, Significant Other and I got all spontaneous and we hired a car and I drove us to where we could catch a steam train.
We raced the sunset to Hervey B@y where we had a romantic meal amid sparkly lights.


The next morning we watched the sun rise over the marina.

We stopped for lunch at Tin C@n B@y on the way back here.


And today we walked on the beach.

Just him and me, and it was lovely.

raving

We interupt the usual schedule of ranting at the universe to rave over Australia, and in particular, QLD. I have been here twice before but I had forgotten:

The air! Fresh like nothing you whiff in London, even on the breeziest of days.

The tomatoes! I hate them usually, it's a texture thing perhaps but I think that they come straight from Satan's armpit at home but here - so sweet and full of flavour. Nom, nom, nom.

The water! There is a shortage because of a long-standing drought so showers are no longer than 4 minutes long, but it is so soft that my skin feels like velvet and my hair is as soft as my darling little cat's fur.

The laid-backitude! If that isn't a word, it should be. The waiter at the Hervey B@y marina bistro (more on that in another post) last night waved us off with a cheery "toodles!"

And last but not least - the plasticised money! I dropped a twenty dollar bill briefly into the sink this morning and it is none the worse for wear.

I know that there is still a lot of poo to deal with in my life but - right here, right now I am happy.