January & February

Well things have been a little dull here lately! A few weeks ago Andre and I took a one-week trip back to Australia for my brother David’s wedding. The flight over was a bit stressful due to having several babies in our row on one of the flights, but the fact both legs were overnight helped combat jet lag. We learnt a valuable lesson in flight-planning; I had left only 1.5 hours between arriving in Sydney and departing for Townsville. Our flight out of China was delayed, and we were further delayed on the tarmac at Sydney airport. We realised by the time we got through border control that we were not going to make our next flight, given that check-in closed 15 minutes prior and we were still yet to clear Customs – and get a bus to the domestic terminal.

Fortunately though we discovered our connecting flight had been delayed by an hour! When we got to the domestic terminal we were told check-in had technically closed but because it was so delayed they still checked us in. It ended up being delayed even further and we probably didn’t board for nearly another hour. My new resolution is to always allow 3 hours between flights when arriving on an international flight!

We stayed with Andre’s parents the first few nights, then my family the last few nights. While there we celebrated my sister Christine’s 21st (I was excited to be back for her 21st as I had expected we were going to miss it otherwise), caught up with school friends, checked out the new Max Brenner Chocolate cafe with my sister Michelle & friend Katie, had a family dinner with both our families as a belated birthday celebration, went to the movies with my sisters and cousins Louise & Tim (to see The Imitation Game), caught up with one of my oldest friends Emily to meet her new baby, saw friends at church and of course helped with setting up the wedding (including preparing afternoon tea and decorating the cake!) and attended the wedding and reception! It was a full week but we enjoyed it, especially the good tropical rain we got half way through the week. I even realised how much I missed the heat and humidity!

Since our return we’ve both been back at work and not up to much really. For Valentine’s Day we went out for afternoon tea at Orange Pekoe in Barnes (south-west London) – it was a bit expensive so not something we’d do a lot but the food was really good! We hadn’t had lunch before and didn’t need much for dinner afterwards.

Last Saturday we spent most of the day helping our friend Daniel supervise his 6 oldest children visiting their new baby sister in hospital, which was fun, although they were a bit disappointed to not be allowed to see their mum. The ward was not really set up for visitors (I don’t think more than 2 were allowed at once) so we had to wait with the kids in the corridor while Daniel went to collect the baby and bring her out. We did this twice – once with the oldest four and then again with the youngest two.

Our next upcoming plans are probably to see another musical – we got a lot of vouchers for Christmas and I think we might go and see Matilda!