Monday, May 04, 2009

Back in the UK

One draw-back with low-cost airlines is that the flights tend to be at antisocial hours, resulting in a couple of days of jet-lag even with the shortest of flights. I arrived in Gatwick at 12.30am and by the time I'd made it to west London it was 3.30am. Rob and Judy had moved house since I was last in London and as I let myself in to the unfamiliar surrounding and disabled the alarm, I briefly wondered if I'd got the right house or had started a new career of house-breaking. If the house was unfamiliar the welcome the next day wasn't and I quickly felt at home. Over the next few days as I zipped around London on the tube visiting friends it almost felt as though I hadn't been away. Great to catch-up with friends, only wished I could have stayed longer and visited others outside London. Still plenty of time in August...

I'm not sure who was more excited at the wedding, my sister or me. Fantastic to catch up with immediate and extended family and finally meet my new brother-in-law.

I finished my brief visit back with a trip to Falmouth to see Will, Alyssa and Grace (Ragtime), and we were joined by Matt and Togs (Helene). My luck held with the warm Spring weather which accompanied me during my trip, bringing out a stunning show of blue-bells in the Cornish woods.

Amazingly my car-train-tube-train-flight-bus-taxi trip back went without a hitch, though I had to explain to customs why my hand-luggage contained a wind transducer, four engine glow-plugs, various parts for the wind-generator as well as hinges, wet-and-dry paper, paint brushes and rollers. In the end I was allowed through customs with only the loss of an innocuous pair of mini-pliers and a bottle of sun-tan lotion.

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