Julie was kind enough to pick me up from the airport after my 14 hour flight from Doha and it was great to see a friendly face. She also got me bread and bananas for breakfast which was bloody marvellous, no need to worry about going to the shops.

The house was exactly the way I’d left it, although there were a few more cobwebs and I found one cockroach in the kitchen dead and the remains of one near the front door, so I guess the Gecko’s must have had lunch one day.

I flicked on all the power, hot water system and the aircon etc. Turned on the gas and the water and everything seemed to be back to normal. It was good to be home. The house was remarkably tidy and I guess I must thank my pre-holiday self for making sure everything was done well.

I made some tea and sat in front of the huge TV that I have in my living room, so much bigger than anything I have been used to over the past few weeks. It’s not long before my bed beckons, I went to have a shower and then realised that I had no hot water………..

No alarm but I wake around 5am and get up to the sound of the butcher bird and the magpies having their morning chat, it’s nice to hear them again. A simple breakfast is also very welcome including a nice coffee for a change. The sun is shining and as I look over the garden I’m surprised that after nearly two months away it’s not looking too bad, in fact it seems to be thriving however as usual the weeds are always one step beyond.

In the afternoon I went to see Doctor Muhammad about my ankle, he tells me that he won’t send me for an x-ray simply because it has been a few weeks since my adventure and my ankle has already begun the healing process and he is convinced that the ligament damage will repair. I buy a compression stocking and have been told to rest as much as possible for the next three weeks and I should be able to get back to business as usual, no site seeing for a while. My ankle does feel slightly uncomfortable and I think that this is due to the fact that I sat for nearly 14 hours on the flight from Doha.

Before going to see the Doc I had to see if the olde Ford would fire. I reconnected the battery and then turned the key and she burst into life and after a wee cough she was sitting quite happily spouting CO2 into the air, very happy about that.

The rest of that day is spent sitting at my desktop downloading the camera pictures, phone pictures and putting them onto storage before formatting my new phone and setting it up properly. It’s great to look back over my travels from the camera as I had no idea until now what I had captured, my only regret really is that my camera will not take pictures inside without the flash going off and so there are no real close ups of the tombs, however the pictures from the phone are still very good. My new phone, which I bought in Doha, has a 104MP camera 🙂

So now it’s just after midday Sunday, I’ve been up for only an hour and a half so I guess I’m still on another time zone ……but’s ok I have no plans and I will follow the doctor’s orders and do as little as possible for the time being.