Back home

I've not posted for a long time, but I've generally been enjoying being back in England.

The journey home was reasonably smooth. I called in at Pingxiang on the way [kind of] and had a last visit to my friends, Steven, Rose & Jasmine. Jasmine (now aged two) is speaking quite a lot and was even persuaded to say some things in English. They tried to get her to call me 'Auntie Steph' (in English), but the best she managed was 'Auntie Douf' (as in 'dou fu' - tofu), which cracked me up! I also called in at Shenzhen and met up with a former Pingxiang College student, Maggie. She's now working in Shenzhen and it was really nice to catch up with her (plus she found a nice hotel for me to stay in). I also had my one and only visit to the beach in China and it was so weird! We went in the evening and so it was very busy - people arriving after work and avoiding the heat of the day etc. It felt like the whole of humanity was either on the beach or in the water. This was made worse by the fact that the people 'swimming' were all inside a limited roped off area and most of them were wearing rubber rings. It was surreal. Difficult to imagine the scene unless you were there...

Anyway, I flew from Hong Kong to London with only some minor turbulence and the annoyance of the person next to me spreading out a bit too much while she was asleep. (I was also jealous of the fact that she was sleeping as I managed an hour tops). A chatty guy originally from Pakistan collected me in a taxi and I made it back to my sister's by about 6am on a beautiful, clear morning. It had only been eleven and a half months and I know that people are away from home a lot longer, but I was really glad to be back.

Since then I've been catching up with friends, bonding with my niece, running, swimming and enjoying the simple pleasures of empty pavements, being able to chat to random people in shops, old people on park benches etc.

Spain next. Watch this space...