Saturday, December 29, 2007

homeward bound

Well, there was more baking, more chocolate and there was more proper activity. A few more farm walks, I pedalled a few laps of some of the paddocks while the boys played with the motorbikes, and we had a few hits of tennis (I’m so bad at it!) and on the gorgeously sunny boxing day we did make it to the beach AND managed to make this spectacular sand castle.





We packed so much into every day, yet felt completely relaxed the whole time, it was more in retrospect that we realised in one day we’d baked (twice), played tennis, gone to the beach (twice) and spent a fair bit of time just hanging around. Other days were similarly busy and it passed all too quickly before we had to pile our luggage into my mum’s toy car and drive back to Melbourne for our flight home. Not before catching up with a few more friends at a pub, riverside. Melbourne is more gorgeous now than it was when I was a student there, though I am very happy living in London. I was sorry not to have spent more time with my Australian friends, it was all too short, sorrier still I didn’t see some at all, though this always happens, and glad that this time I got to see some I’d missed the last time. It’s amazing how quickly the years pass and how when you return after not seeing people for so long it all feels so easy still.

What will I miss? My dad’s breadmaker bread, made from flour he mills himself, the sunshine, trying more of the restaurants and discovering all the food changes that occur in my absence, being able to go to the farm and relax and eat my mother’s famous chips. I’ll miss walking along the beach. Mostly I’ll miss the people, especially my delightful niece and nephew who made Christmas so special.

Back to Old Blighty. Does anyone know why it’s called that? I could Google it I suppose… Except I’m writing this on the plane and there’s no search engine up here… In fact there’s not much of anything on this plane, no personal TVs, not even a personal air conditioning vent! Good on the way out with back to back night flights we slept, with no distractions to watch films, I’ve managed to fill almost the entire twelve hour flight to Shanghai with a thick and very addictive novel bought for me by my Holly for Christmas. Perhaps I’ll nap on tomorrow’s flight.

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