We finally made it back home to Banchory and the first sound we heard when we were driven in to Arbor Court was the squawking of the gulls - they're back again! It was only 9 in the morning and we had no provisions in the house, so I whipped the cover off the car and we drove over to Tesco to get some essential groceries.
It's now early afternoon and Jo has succumbed to sleep on the couch. I've resisted so far but I have to try and stay awake as we're waiting for our bags to be delivered from Aberdeen airport. We had a fairly tight connection at Heathrow and while we were able to make the flight up to Aberdeen, our cases didn't. They apparently were loaded on to the next flight so I'm hoping they'll be here soon.
That apart, the journey pretty much went as planned. It was a long haul - the elapsed time from Old Noarlunga to Banchory was almost 38 hours. Everything was on time or earlier. The extra domestic flight from Adelaide and the subsequent 5+ hours wait at Sydney for the start proper of our international journey didn't help, and having to pay over $A18 to get from the domestic to the international terminal there rubbed some salt in the wound.
I did get a major shock, however, on the eve of our departure from Kelly's and Chris' home when I checked in on the BA app for our international flights. I got a message that we couldn't check in because the flight had already left! Oh no - did I make a mess of the bookings? I hurriedly opened my laptop to enquire further and there on my BA account were 2 separate bookings - one for Sunday departure and another for Monday - same route and times but I noted they had different booking references. I still have no idea how the first booking got there but it was a great relief to see the second booking - and to know that I hadn't made a mess of things after all!
I never reported our close encounter with a large brown snake on our morning walk on Thursday. It slinked across the path just a few feet in front of us. Ironically I had been joking with Chris' brother Matt a few days before that I had seen more snakes in the wild in Scotland than I had in all the times we'd been to Australia. This was my first ever encounter Down Under with one of these creatures:
Although it was a large adult, Chris told me this was far less dangerous than encountering baby brown snakes. The adults have learned to save their venom for occasions of real danger to them, but the youngsters haven't learned this yet and attack randomly. Wouldn't you know it, but the day after this, when Jo and I were at the Fringe in Adelaide, a nasty baby brown snake was spotted in Chris' and Kelly's house. Chris eventually managed to shepherd the snake out of the house but it was snapping away at him all the time.
Incidentally, we did eventually make it to the "Wheaty" - on Friday for a pre-Fringe show beer. We also had our first 40 C degree day on Saturday. Just before dusk, Chris went up the hill opposite to get a view from on high of the sunset out to sea. After he'd gone, I thought it might be a good idea too. It was the first time I'd ventured over the river since my nasty fall a few weeks' previously and I must admit I felt a bit nervous, even though I wasn't going anywhere near where I'd fallen:
To close, a shot of Matt and Asher (underwater) in the pool on Sunday when he was child minding, plus one of the 4 of us at our lovely lunch at the Currant Shed (which is now my screen saver):
- and I've just had a phone call from the courier to tell me he's on his way with our bags - hooray!
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