Jetlag has hit me hard. I’ve never had it so bad in my life. I’m guessing it’s a combination of age, working too hard and having tonsillitis before I arrived. I keep getting hit by this wall of horror and have to sit down.
So we spent today gently meandering around the Botanical Gardens, which were awesome. It was a perfect day, sunny and warm and Himself has a million photos of beautiful things.

We saw, amongst other things, 2 cockatoos (one which happily sat on people’s shoulders – not mine thank the gods, I’m no fool, I know it just wanted to peck out my eyes), 1 kookaburra, numerous unknown (but freakishly bizarre) birds, several huge spiders in webs made of rope like in the Lord of the Rings, 2 scarecrows and 25,000 bats, most hanging upside down in a sinister manner.

For Real!

And the weird bird from yesterday was an Ibis apparently.  I thought they were part of Greek Mythology.  You live you learn!!

When you have family in Australia you don’t really get to do the touristy stuff. The first time I went to Australia I was 12 and we pretty much only visited Tasmania. Another girl at my school went to Australia around the same time – she went to Sydney and the Gold Coast and came home laden down with Koala t-shirts and stuffed Kookaburras (cuddly as appose to taxidermy). Everyone surrounded her upon her return full of excited questions. As for me, well no-one had ever heard of Tasmania in 1987 – even our neighbours thought it was in New Zealand – and I think my delightful schoolfellows thought I was making shit up. Again. I wasn’t the most popular girl in the school you see.

So it was that I was 18 and had been to Australia 3 times before I ever saw any part of Sydney other than the airport. And it was love at first sight. I adore this weird little city (because it is so tiny), with its enormous Botanical Garden, iconic bridge and bizarre Opera House.

It feels amazing to be back!

PS – can anyone tell me what this crazy bird is please?

Taught my last classes and massaged my last clients for a month, despite feeling like hell.

Discovered that the feeling like hell was because I had tonsillitu.

Took mega strong penicillin in an attempt to get well as quickly as possible.

Had my eyebrows waxed, my (increasingly grey) roots dyed, my feet pedicured and my legs fake tanned.

Tried to decipher the ridiculous rules about what you can and can’t take on long haul flights (it’s been 6 years).

Managed to pack everything I need into one suitcase which I can close without sitting on it (there’s a first time for everything).

Have not had enough sleep.

But now I am in the Heathrow Hilton, plugged into overly priced WiFi, full of food and wine and ready for an early night before flying out to Sydney tomorrow.  And despite there still being no release date for the Foo Fighters movie over there, I cannot wait to arrive!

Thank you for all the lovely messages on FB and Twitter – see you on the flipside kiddos!