@Roberta,
I'm home.
Had the usual "Oh god I have way less money than I expected, help!" experience. This will play out as being more or less agitating when all my bills are delivered!
Partly this is real, and partly the result of a bank stuff-up, which they are in the process of fixing.
It's wet cold and windy, but who cares?
Having the usual post-natal depression consequent upon getting home, as well as being tremendously happy to unpack The Beast for the last time, put away my passport BECAUSE NOBODY GETS TO DEMAND TO SEE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.....honestly, how many people need to see your passport and boarding pass and such for ONE trip through ONE airport.....
Dear Helen met me.....she had a bit of a difficult trip home...was obviously picked out for a random special search at Heathrow, including being frisked and having to unpack her whole suitcase. This was ameliorated at Singapore where the Hotel went out of its way to be enormously kind (including giving her a suite for nil extra, letting her have the room 5 hours ahead of normal so she could sleep immediately, and generally being very empathic and helpful because of her circumstances. However, this was cancelled out somewhat in Sydney (where she had to wait five hours) when Quarantine became suspicious when she very honestly declared a tiny pack of French almonds (which they rightfully confiscated) but then insisted on searching her entire luggage...I am all for quarantine and I guess they wondered if she declared the almonds to trick them into believing her honest while she imported tonnes of illicit vegetable matter.,,,but she was at the end of her tether.
I don't know at what point she became aware that her mother had actually died while she was in Singapore.
It's always great and kind of sad to get home. There's no place like home...but travel, for all its tensions and difficulties (and there are many usually, in some way or another) is wonderful...and it's kind of like child birth, I guess, you rapidly forget the bad parts, or they become Hilarious Stories.
It's not great that all you wonderful people are so far away again....but my friends are here.
Be nice to have both, eh???!!! I mean, you guys near, and my Oz friends near too.
Work is soon here too.
I am quite tired today (I got in yesterday morning...it's 9.36 am Saturday here) and am very much plodding around unpacking The Beast very slowly and sorting stuff.
Miranda is fine...but I can't pick her up because I do, indeed, have two flat tyres that have to be replaced and I can't get that done until Tuesday...I kind of think I may have the dentist on Tuesday too, but I can't find where I put The Diary that would illuminate me on this matter so carefully almost seven weeks ago!
Foster daddy K made no offer to bring Miranda around so I'll ring foster mummy S in a while and see if her softer heart means she offers. She has a wild crazy schedule though, so she may be working all weekend for all I know.
I can't wait until I see what she's been up to....she's in politics and is currently in a position that her party can't do much to her so she is in a position at last for Speaking Out Publicly, and has been doing so.
I am slowly sorting out people's presents, but there is more stuff coming by mail, so this is a bit moot at present.
The deliciously lovely man who checked my luggage through from Albuquerque to Adelaide....(yes, I flirted)....kindly decided not to charge me the $200 he COULD have done because The Beast was overweight. In Oz, they'll generally weigh ALL the luggage, and if you're under your allowance it's fine. In the US they take each bag separately, it seems...and The Beast was over while my little bag was under. he was supposed to charge me a couple of hundred but didn't.
