It's good to be home

It might have taken us a good few hours longer than expected to get home, but after finally touching down at London Heathrow and having made our way through arrivals and baggage reclaim (following a slightly tense five minutes during which we were fairly certain that Nick’s luggage had been lost somewhere along the way in Doha, we were finally home.

            Mum and dad had performed their usual ritual of arriving three hours early to drink coffee, waiting for us to arrive whilst working their way around all the chairs in the café as and when they become vacant, trying to get the best, most obvious seats in the house so that we would be able to see them as soon as we arrived.

            Finally, late due to the annoying delays, we walked through arrivals, spotted my parents from a mile off due to their perfect seating chose, and we had a moment for a big hug and a fairly hefty coffee before the drive back down to the Shire.

            Thanks to the uncomfortable travel and the time zone confusions, what followed was a very quiet, slightly sleepy birthday.

            We mooched around the house, we had a lovely lunch at home, Nick and I wandered around the millpond to the pub for a ‘Welcome Home’ beer and flick through the local crappy newspaper, Lizzy came over to say hello and to showcase her amazing, growing baby bump, and then I sent Nick home for an afternoon-long nap ahead of dinner, whilst I went to visit my old people with mum.

Both old people were thankfully on fine form, and having run through all the essential “So, how do you like Singapore?” type questions from granddad (whilst eating chocolate covered ginger treats) and the “Are you living with this boy – I hope you have proper family planning in place – what sort of a bra are you wearing under that dress?” questions from Grandma (with the aid of a cup of tea and shocking, no whiskey or sherry chasers) we passed a fairly lovely afternoon of ridiculous chatter.

            The final port of call for the day was Hallidays restaurant just slightly set back in the hills, where we headed for an absolutely delicious three course, wine heavy dinner courtesy of my lovely daddy, and in the company of

both sets of parents and a slightly exhausted Nick (he definitely required another hour or five of sleep before he was going to be ready for life).