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Melbourne to Inflight – Saturday 18th June
I have to start at the beginning. Ev & Omi have dropped us off. We are through customs and ladened down with 2kg of sirloin beef and 6 bottles of wine – precious cargo!
Hayden called us UK-1am, Oz-10am. We are looking forward to seeing each other!
We dropped into Brighton Rehabilitation Hospital to see Dotty – we are all confident that she will be OK whilst we are away.
We have a light meal and snack to Kuala Lumpur and movie ‘Million Dollar Baby’ – sad, right ending. Loved the style of it – close ups and dialogue, brownish colouring during her training and fighting, greyish-white during hospital, bright and gaudy for her family. Poignant.
Also watch a Michael Parkinson interview with journalist John Sergeant, Goldie Hawn and John Travolta. I love Michael Parkinson interviews and this one was great.
Kuala Lumpur airport is very modern. There are two airports. The international is in the shape of a cross and the domestic is in the shape of a T. They are connected with the sky train. We walk and walk and walk with all of our luggage on a trolley. And we ride the sky train.
In Flight to West Ealing – Sunday 19th June
We leave Kuala Lumpur ½ hour late and our ETA to Heathrow is ½ hour early. This time of the year there are strong headwinds across Australia to Kuala Lumpur and tailwinds from Kuala Lumpur.
I was dreading the long haul – 14 hours, but I sleep well for about 7 hours. The neck cushion is great.
Watch ‘The Pacifier’ which is a mixture of action and kids. Interesting combination. An easy watch, what Bruce calls ‘…take your brains out and put them under the seat’.
It’s 12:30pm in Oz which is 3:30am in UK. The sun is rising above the clouds as we are chased by it. I’ve only seen cloud on this flight during daylight hours. Just hope it is not an ominous sign
We land at 5:30am, nearly a half hour early and learn (embarrassingly) that Bangladesh beat Australia in the one-day cricket. What a welcome to immigration!
Being honest citizens, we choose the red lane for customs declaration and have the steak CONFISCATED. I am gob-smacked. They are protecting themselves from mad cow disease and not allowing Australian quarantined beef in!! Well, someone will have a nice steak tonight and it won’t be us. Poor Hayden and Elisse. Still, we have the wine.
Hayden and Elisse are waiting – big bright smiles on their faces. It is just past 6:00am and the day is bright and warm, already 23°C.
We navigate the underground to Ealing Common and the bus to West Ealing, including lugging bags up and down staircases. This is quite hard work.
So a little after 7:00am we are ‘home’. We have showers and find some summer clothes.
We have breakfast of fresh bread with butter and jam and coffee – it is Sunday after all. And lots of chatter. Bruce and Hayden examine the ‘computer with a lens’. Hayden is impressed.
We call home – speak to Dotty in hospital and Ev and Omi at Omi’s. All’s well, although Sally won’t let Wally near her – such a bitch.
Hayden gets out his unicycle and we walk around Ealing – Walpole Park (reminds me of Mrs Walpole at St Leonard’s), Lammas Park, Ealing Broadway shops, which are quiet because it is Sunday. Bruce has some fun capturing Hayden on his unicycle. We are impressed that he can get up on it at all.
At 12 o’clock we decide a pub lunch would be good. We find the Wheat Sheaf – a very pretty pub. We enjoy cider/beer/coke and some very greasy nibbles. Petunias and ivy hang from the walls. We sit outside. It is very pleasant and very warm.
We wander back to West Ealing and pick up British Beef (not Australian), beer and a phone card. All essentials.
Bruce has already taken lots of photos and I download them to the Mac and work out how to reduce them to internet friendly size in iPhotos. Yahoo, here we come.
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