OK, a quick summary.
After seeing the fox in London, Mel and Jem hired a car and we drove to Wales for the weekend. I saw a few old castles and a Roman bath house. We stayed overnight in a country town, afraid for our lives as it was swarming with yobbos and Wales had just lost the football. The next day we saw an ancient burial site, a little like a mini hunnebed.
Back in London, I spent a day in the Natural History Museum, and then an hour or so in the Science Museum. I met up with Simon Abela and GF, Luke and Penny Swords at a pub in Paddington. It was good to catch up with everyone, and I will be seeing them again when I return, hopefully Chris Sharkey will be able to come as well.
Back to Amsterdam for a day or two, then I said goodbye to Kirsten and my house, packed all my stuff and got on a plane to Kuala Lumpur. I had to freight my second suitcase – the airline wanted €800+ excess baggage fees. It ended up costing €180 or so.
In KL I went back to the tailor’s to (finally) pick up my finished suit, outside I bought an Ajax shirt for the equivalent of €3, lucky I didn’t spend the €60 in Amsterdam. I spent the rest of the day in the Pan Pacific Hotel KL, and it was great. If you have a stopover I highly recommend staying at a nice hotel and sleeping.
I got back to Sydney early on the morning of September 9th. The plan was to go to see Sampson but I slept instead.
I went up to the Mountains on Saturday and saw Mum, Michelle, Luke, and was introduced to SAMPSON. He was beautiful and when I held him in my arms I fell in love straight away, like a chick. I told him that I am his favourite uncle, and I could tell by the way that he didn’t poo that he agreed. He was so small and helpless, and hairy. Michelle calls him her cheeky monkey.
Monday the 12th of September was the sixth anniversary of my first post to this blog.
Thursday the 15th I flew down to Melbourne for Adam and Bits’ wedding, I shared an apartment with Chris and Mei-Ling, with Mel, Jem, Jan and John just down the hall. We went out Thursday night for a nice meal, Adam and Bits broke tradition by seeing each other the night before.
Friday the 16th was the wedding, Bits was the most beautiful, most bride-like bride I have ever seen. The ceremony was short, after which those of us in the wedding party had photos taken of us for almost 4 hours. Yay. The reception was on the beach at St Kilda, an example of the attention to detail: the little bag of lollies that they gave us perfectly matched the colours on my tie. There were no bad speeches, Mel was nervous but did a good job anyway, and when she said that Adam was her best friend the whole room said “aww”.
Saturday we went drinking with people from the wedding and some of Jem’s friends, and then Saturday night Chris, Mei-Ling and I went out to dinner with the newlyweds. The next day was spent with Mel and Jem, and Jem’s sister Liss. In the afternoon the three of us were sitting next to each other on the plane to Sydney. M&J then got a connecting flight to London and I went home.
I started work at Positive on the 26th, on a short contract to help out whilst a replacement was found for (me) Paul and Toutou.
So that was an abbreviated September. Stay tuned for October.
It’s about bloody time!