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I’ve been back home for nearly 2 weeks now. After a respectable 36 hour journey from Brisbane to London involving delays, flight cancellations, lost & found baggage and as much standing up as I could muster Ma and Pa were at Heathrow to greet me and ferry me home. The fact that I entered the arrivals hall under my own steam was almost a disappointment to my distraught mother, who despite my protestations half expected me to be wheeled prone atop an airport milk-float-mobility-vehicle(MFBV) with a gaggle of wretched neuro-surgeons weeping at my side. But I was glad to see them and in surprisingly good fettle despite my confusion at having endured two airport bound halloween’s in both Australia and the U.S. without the tonic of a trick-or-treat.

The last fortnight has been a whirlwind of nhs doctor’s appointments (I can see a specialist within a year they promise), endless prone calls to insurers (they have been no help whatsoever), standing, prostrate cancellations of various trip components, sofa-based laptoppery, horizontal lunch visits, sit-down dentist appointments (bad), stand-up meetings at work, lying down, swimming, physio appointments, lay-down reflexology, more lying down, planning, plotting, scheming, a stand up buffet dinner party, an evening standing in a pub, more standing, a very expensive sit down in a private neuro-surgeons office, odd lie-down business meetings at home, pilates instruction, intra-city walking and stand-up/lie-down house husbandry (which I really rather enjoy…hmmm, one day…). Resting is exhausting.

I’ve enjoyed coming back to the crisp clarity of autumnal England, and I think it’s the luck of my celtic ancestry which imparts an affection and enthusiastic anticipation for the rapidly approaching winter — but I’d still rather be bobbing about in Bali.