Yawning through my jet lag, my night and day are still mixed up! Someone said jet lag is worse when you travel forwards in time and not backwards. I woke up at 3am this morning and am trying to stay awake so I can crash early and hopefully sleep through the whole night. Back to work tomorrow, WHAT A SHAME!

In transit on the way back was at Singapore Changi airport, a very attractive terminal with a central display of orchid beds, glass flowers and shiny lighted glass balls. I ignored duty free shops, am still sulking about losing my bottle of dessert wine at Tokyo airport on the way over to England.

Very sad to leave family and my gorgeous little granddaughter but how lovely to have had a month to get to know her. Days drifted by with walks by the river, through the laneways and hedges eating fresh berries straight from the bushes. I enjoyed some ripe elderberries for the first time. Elderflowers are made into cordial and elderberries made into wine. Blackberry season was at its peak, I saw crab apples, rose hips and many apple trees laden with fruit just dropping to the ground. Raw foodies you could feast happily on tons of fruit, I wish there had been time for me to experiment with making loads of raw apple recipes.

 I watched many couples wondering what attracts people to each other. So many mixed cultures which in turn means that families are scattered all over the world and international travel is the only way to see loved ones sometimes. My mother left England as a young woman and went to Rhodesia in Southern Africa, there she met my South African father (his mother was Dutch, his father German). I met a Swiss guy in Johannesburg and we emigrated to Switzerland before finally landing up in Australia. Our eldest daughter went travelling a few years ago and met a guy in Spain who turned out to be half English, half Swedish and they have been together for years now in England. If only it wasn’t so far away.

Next thing to look forward to… Christmas in 3 months! Geoff and I are off to Perth to enjoy a family get-together there. And I have never been to Perth way over that side of our huge Australian continent – it takes almost 4 days to drive from Sydney to there, huge distances. We will fly to save time but who knows one day we may have our bus and then we can take as long as we like to travel around the country. Dreaming ……