The trip

I actually look quite cheerful here in the rather quaint hotel in Seoul on the way to London.  I suppose the reality of being so far from home and heading even further away hadn't dawned on me.

I look a bit shell-shocked here at the Seoul airport on the way back.  Mind you, the actual airport is truly wonderful, quite deserving of the No 1 airport in the world award it has won seven years in a row.


I've been home a week and two days and am still like a zombie, with sleep patterns all over the place.  No amount of melatonin tablets, sleeping pills, warm milk or bananas has the least little effect on getting me to sleep at night.  

Home again

Scenes from the 50th wedding anniversary lunch in a French village, the reason for my trip.  Of course, it was wonderful to meet everybody again, but the trip home took 30 hours which was excruciating and not surprisingly I ended up with bed sores - well, seat sores:  one hour from my nephew's Chelsea home to Heathrow; two hours hanging about; 10 hours to Incheon airport in South Korea; five hours waiting for the second leg; another 10 hours in the air; one hour getting through Immigration in Sydney; one hour from the airport home.


And that's not even mentioning the trip to get to London, then by Eurostar to Paris, to the village by train, to Orleans by bus, back to Paris by train, back to London by Eurostar.


No sympathy, I hear you say, as it was all self-inflicted.


But there is a happy ending - when I got home, Muffy came galloping up to me, making the welcoming noise only a cat can make, just about threw herself into my arms and has hardly left my lap since, purring loudly all the time.  And of course, kisses and hugs from the grandchildren.


NEVER, NEVER AGAIN.