Friday, 25 September
Things are packed. The 6 bags are fairly full and we’re
trusting the cheap hand scales we bought in London to not led us astray in New
York. We really haven’t bought too many things whilst in NY, so we should be
fine.
Our 6th bag is 2 cheap stripey plastic bags we
bought in London, one being placed inside the other for added strength. The
trip to NY had one handle rip off, so we’ve swapped the inside bag with the
outside for the last leg of our journey which consists of 3 flights, the
transfers between flights, a taxi ride and the last car ride home. It just made
it with an added 3 wraps of ‘Checked Baggage’ tape at the end. It had good,
full life.
J
We spend the last few hours before the flights in Harlem
with Dee going from shop to shop looking for those last minute bargains and
Gene and I reading books.
Overall, the trip back to Canberra was pretty smooth. We
watched one man pay US$450 for extra baggage as he bought too many clothes
whilst on his holiday to NY which was quite funny as the airline staff was
running around finding a plastic tub to put the clothes in and then taping it
all up.
Without saying too much about the flight without it sounding
like a scene from ‘The Castle’, it was a good trip with lots of movies, book
reading and a few hours of sleep.
Saturday, 26 Sep.
Yes, I’m a bit weird about dates but today is 26 ½ years in
the job and I’m coming back home using the last of my leave that I’ve been
saving for the last 6-7 years.
Due to the changes in time zones, today was about 8 hours
long.
Sunday, 27 Sep.
We were offered the opportunity to catch and earlier flight
from Sydney to Canberra and spent the minutes at the airport to warn out our
friend who is picking us up we’re coming home early.
Coming home was a bit surreal. We’re back to where we’ve
started from without too much of a noticeable change. Normally when I go away
for work, there’s a period of settling in as I get use to the flow of life that
has occurred whilst I’m away. This time, we’ve all been away and we almost slot
into the routine we normally have.
It’s almost like the last 5+ months have been a dream.
I started unpacking, trying to find places for the things we
have, giving of gifts, and taking empty bags out of the house. 2 bags down, 4
to go. We were lucky in having food and milk in the fridge from one of our
friends who stayed at our place just days before to take her children to Floriade,
a flower show in Canberra. It was a great relief not having to worry about
shopping straight away to have a coffee and lunch.
I couldn’t help myself and in the afternoon we went for a
quick shop to buy food for the next few days and I later put some more air in
the tyres of one of the cars. I noticed that one of the tyres (not the one which
was the lowest) had one of my upholstery tacks in it. I didn’t believe it was
in too far in, so I pulled it out and then tried to quickly stick it back as
air started come out. A quick tyre change at the petrol station and I was home
to 2 sleeping girls who really didn’t wake up for the rest of the day.
I went to bed about 8.30pm absolutely knackered knowing my
frail mind and body will only let me sleep 7 hours and I’ll be up early the
next morning.
Monday, 28 Sep
It’s now 3.45am having a coffee in my TARDIS coffee mug…..
At the start of our trip in the UK, we seemed to have caught
a rolling series of public holidays on the Mondays for the first month or so.
Just to have the Alpha and Omega, today is a public holiday in Canberra.
A day planned full of packing away, washing, sorting our
memorabilia into some sort of order and getting the phones and internet turned
back on. In a few days’ time, I’m off to a re-enactment event I had organized a
year ago over the long weekend. It should be great just to mooch around.
We still have a few $ in the bank at the end. I’m back to
work in 2 weeks’ time and Dee will start to looking into her job opportunities
but she still needs a holiday from her holiday. We’re thinking that I should
visit Brisbane next week if our finances allow it to check up on our house and
property to see what is going on.
With our trip now just memories and experiences, I’m already
planning for our next adventure. Maybe in 5 years’ time, I’ll walk the
pilgrimage route from Calais to Compo De Stella in period clothing if my body
will allow me. I’ll only be 48, so not THAT old. Dee will take the opportunity
to visit all those little villages she seemed to miss out on our last one and
finally have her canal barge ride and Gene will be an adult and starting her
own life but hopefully take care of our place when we’re gone.
Thank you all for sharing our adventure.
:)
:)