It's not everyday I find myself flying over a mountain; and it's not everyday that I feel quite lost for words...but I am. I don't know where to begin in describing our 3 week trip to New Zealand; do I start with the journey (endless), the family (simply delicious), the sun (relentless), my vintage stash (fairly big but could have been bigger), the food (wonderful), the price of diesel (approx 35p a litre!!) and time spent with my exquisite husband (heavenly). Yes, it was a truly wonderful holiday which even a week later, has left my mind in a muddle. My body has taken days to shake off the jet lag, which on arrival in NZ only took a day to acclimatise. But there you go, you have to have something to balance all this goodness don't you?
Right, I'll start at the beginning with a teary goodbye to the children, then a few hours later a 'squeezing Anth's hand a little too tight, dabbing my eyes silently with a Cath Kidston tissue' sort of take-off. The tissues were soon forgotten when I awoke a few hours later and spent time marveling at the snowy mountains of Mongolia which in turn somehow turned into the Gobi Dessert.
A change of plane at Seoul and another 12 hours later we caught our first glimpse of New Zealand as we flew into Auckland.
"Oh, oh look Anth - it's New Zea!" (my pet name for NZ)
"Anth, Anth look! Aww, it's your home. Ahh, it's New Zea! Are tears pricking your eyes? Anth...it's the first glimpse...Anth, can't you put that down?"
It became quite clear as our holiday progressed that when in a plane, Anth has to have his nose in a Sudoku book! We went on no less than 8 flights, one plane sat only 19 and had a open cock-pit...ummm...have I mentioned before that flying doesn't come quite as naturally to me as other people and that flight almost had the Cath Kidston tissue scenario. But no, I saved my Cath tissues for when we were on another flight (plane seated 50, closed cock-pit) and the plane fell about 200 feet with turbulence and other passengers started screaming!) But my sweetie just sat doing his Sudoku.
I managed the flying better than I thought I would as I, with my camera to hand, was truly transfixed by each passing country and ocean (even being able to spot 9 Chinese fishing boats lit with lanterns in the Yellow Sea.)
Anth's sister and family picked us up at a very hot, humid Auckland
and within a couple of hours of being in the on the other side of the world, I found myself in Laura Ashley buying a duvet cover - like you do....well, you can take the girl out of Britain but you can't take Britain out of the the girl.
More later..
