24th March 2009

Home now since Friday mid-morning. The reason why we were delayed taking off was quite interesting. Apparently London Heathrow does not open until 5 am and as there were favourable tail winds we would have arrived too early so we had to wait until the arrival time was okay! Wouldn't recommend a 14 hours flight to my worst enemy. It seemed to last a lot longer and although we all managed some sleep it was not really enough to help pass the time. Jet-lag is beginning to pass; maybe if we were younger it wouldn't be such a problem.

I will now try and sum up the holiday, plus fill in bits I've forgotten to mention at the time. Firstly, both Hong Kong and Singapore still have squatting toilets – okay for us men but not too good for Rosalyn and Avril. Rosalyn tells me though that the public toilets also had ordinary toilets so they always waited for those. Singaporeans were very friendly and helpful; one seemed to spend a lot of time bowing and thanking people. Australia is wonderful and we have still only barely scratched the surface. I believe that you would need at least a month in each major city whilst you visited the area before you could begin to feel you had seen the place.

I've not mentioned the roads in Australia. Considering the size of the country you would expect a road called the North-West Highway to be like our motorways, but they are not. The roads (apart obviously those in the cities) are for the most part single carriageways with a passing spot every so often. For those who live in Manchester, think Deansgate; for those in Hull, think Tranby Lane.

I could ramble on at length but every good thing must come to an end so, until the next adventure of a 'not-so-grey nomad' I will sign off in the hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog and this is now THE END.