57 Hours Later...

57 hours after leaving the office in Aberdeen I arrived home to Melbourne this afternoon. I flew down from Aberdeen to London Heathrow on Thursday night, spent 8 hours at a hotel next to the runway, flew to LAX, sat around the airport for the day, sat in the plane on the tarmac for some time while they fixed a problem with one of the engines (!), flew to Sydney and then to Melbourne. Mum arrived home last night, having run around Italy in a bid to catch planes home, depending on the kindness of strangers to help her navigate through Prato, Milan and Rome. Lawrence is yet to arrive, having tried to travel by standby for 3 nights now. It looks like he will probably miss the funeral on Tuesday as tomorrow's flight also looks full.
The week started off with a very exciting Sunday. We found out that having moved into our flat the previous weekend, the Tour de France would come through our complex in its first stage! We could actually see part of the route from our balcony but we wandered the extra 100m down the street to get some roadside action. It started quite slowly with a few cars and motorbikes cruising past, a couple of gendarmes actually chatting loudly to each other as they rode by. All of a sudden, cars and motorbikes sped down the street, coming very close to the spectators. I wondered why they were going so fast until the cyclists came just as quickly. Within 20 seconds, it was all over and all that were left were the support vehicles. Photos of those 20s are posted on my photo page.
After the Tour de France, I settled in to watch the men's final of Wimbledon. What a match! What competitiveness and class! The right man won in the end (in my opinion). Records are made to be matched and broken and Federer deserved to get match Borg's 5 in a row.
After Wimbledon, Taffy's Uncle Sam and Gu Jie came to visit us (to make sure we weren't living in squalor) and to bring us lots of Chinese goodies (instant noodles, Lee Kum Kee sauces, crackers, lap cheung & instant meals) and a coffee table. They took us out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant where I ordered Ging Dou Pai Gwut (sweet and sour pork), my very 'unChinese-like' favourite dish.
I have a week off on compassionate leave before heading back to the UK on Saturday afternoon (will be going back via Singapore, the normal route, rather than the US).