The flight from Guangzhou was delayed due to the weather, Guangdong had been hit by severe weather and looking at the news the other day I think that the hour delay we had was fortunate.

I had bought a window seat and as luck would have it I had three seats to myself and so I was able to stretch out shortly after take-off and claim my prize. After dinner I settled down to the horizontal and I did get a sleep, however the turbulence was a reminder that we were flying high.

As we came over Darwin there was an announcement asking for a doctor as there was a medical emergency, this continued for a bit of time and I thought that we might be diverted to Cairns and I know it may sound dreadful but I just wanted to get home. The plane stayed on course to Brisbane but when we landed the paramedics boarded the aircraft to assess the passenger, still no idea what the medical emergency was, but the paramedics didn’t seem to be too agitated so I guess all was going to be OK or they had already snuffed it…………

Passport control was very quiet and my bags appeared fairly quickly so I loaded up my trolley with my two large case and headed for the bio-security guys. The big fella looked at my trolley and asked what’s the story and I told him that all I was declaring was some loose tea , however it was sealed. He thought for a few seconds and then said that I was fine to continue to the exit, I really feel that he just didn’t want to go through the vast amount of luggage that I had, and I was also very happy with the outcome. I really didn’t have anything else apart from tea this time.

I got an Uber. The roads were quiet, still cost over $100 to get back home. The house is in one piece thankfully and my garden is actually looking rather good. The grass is looking great, Rebecca across the road has done a great job looking after it for me and the rest of the plants seem to have grown quite a bit in my absence along with the weeds!

I’ve been home 5 days now and I am still feeling weary. Glad to be home, maybe need to feed myself some protein. No Covid this time but my body is relaxed as I ease myself into my simple life here. I’m so happy to be out of China, funny how things change. When I lived there before I obviously ignored many of the things that really got on my tits this time. The noise, the amount of people, the pollution, the driving to name but a few.

I’ve changed I guess, I’m more of a grumpier old man now with little patience for what I encountered in China. From now on China will be for holidays only. I’ll travel before I settle for a few weeks to visit Sissi and others. I don’t think going for two months is a good idea, I feel that 6 weeks is sufficient time to live out of a suitcase.

Give me a few months to recover from this and I’ll no doubt be heading to an airport for another jaunt. In the meantime I have plenty to be getting on with here. I need to find some work to get some cash. I need to get back into my calisthenics to toughen up once more, two months without doing any exercise apart from walking is not good for the body. The list has begun and I will work my way through it over the cooler months. So glad to be heading into winter, just hope it is a dry winter for a change.