The final blog?

Maybe the best part of our trip is staring us in the face and needs saying? Tess and I have just spent five months in each other's company, 24/7 rarely being apart for more than the very occasional hour or two. In those five months we never had more than a muttered cross word, or a sulk or bad mood that lasted more than a few minutes. And we went through a few bad times of course and still came out friends.

I found the picture above on my phone, I had forgotten all about it. It was taken from my bed in St Augustine's Hospital in Kumily in the hills of Kerela, it must have been one of the less painful interludes of my stay. Tess is fast asleep on her 'by standers' bed - barely justifying the name bed, it was a narrow and extremely hard board. And the other picture is I think of breakfast, two milky sweet teas in a holder for carrying across the yard from the hospital kitchen and a large nan bread. One of the lowest points in our travels - but you know we were always OK even in the bad times, we had each other!

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And a final word of thanks to our blog readers, we have enjoyed writing the blog and it has been very pleasing to be told that many of you have enjoyed reading it. If you haven't been following it then I don't suggest you start now - reading through five months backwards would take some stamina! But maybe if you want to dip in here are four blogs that might interest you (and we have added a few photos that we could not originally post):

'Valentines Day', 15 Feb
'Things are different here', 18 Feb

and if you want to read about some bad experiences then (among several) try:

'Crossing the Red Sea', 18 Jan
'Cursing Kurseong', 10 March

Brian

I have just read Brian's last entry and feel I must add that not only did we have very few cross, grumpy or combative words we have in fact laughed a lot, sometimes at ourselves and sometimes at the oddities of our fellow travelers and other members of the human race.

Tess

Blog #85 - Home

I know this is really contrary but since we are home here is a photo of us back in January, finally on our way at Kings Cross station. And confidence in our first flight, BMI to Amman, was not high when we realised that the flight deck had to clean their own windows!

We really ought to do a blog saying we have reached home - so here it is. We arrived at Heathrow early morning on the 1st June to the most glorious weather we had seen in a long time - Tess said she felt warm for the first time since Tokyo (and our Canadian readers can justifiably claim that as an exaggeration - although not too much of one!).

Our last flight was fine although one passenger some rows behind us was taken seriously ill and we had a lot of rushing about and that call went out 'Is there a doctor on board?'. One duly appeared and we assume he stabilised the patient as we were not diverted to Iceland. We had a final kerfuffle on arrival, we were down to one debit card (mine stopped in Canada following a claimed fraudulent use which proved incorrect) and with only a handful of unspent Canadian dollars. Relying on Tessa's card for cash proved a trifle optimistic - it had expired the day before! We managed to buy coach tickets with a credit card and reached Cambridge (and our awaiting replacement cards).

Cambridge looked absolutely lovely in the June sunshine and the house was fine - cleaner and tidier following the departure of our German and Dutch students than when we live in it and with very few indications that they had been here at all, and our temporary gardener had kept the garden tidy. But we stumbled around wondering where anything was. Sophie had left a note that bread and other food was in stock - but where did we keep the bread?

We faced dealing with five months of unopened post (including Premium Bond prize cheques which had expired - don't get excited they were for £50 and the new lower amount of £25) but Tess faces a larger challenge - how on earth to find a summary of what had happened in the Archers over the past five months? A google search found a Nancy Banks Smith article from early March and its seems that Matt Crawford has gone bust - reflecting the general economic condition of the country. She continues to seek out vital plot information (Archer fans please email).

The cats have been returned by my sister and brother in law - there was some psychological adjustments to be made to the situation of course, and the cats have accepted the position as well.

We have downloaded the 3,500 photographs from the 10 countries we visited. Why so few you ask? Well the loss of two cameras somewhat cramped our style (yes, yes you knew about the loss of my camera in Eqypt but I felt too foolish to admit that I then lost Tessa's camera at the Indian wedding). My aim is to get that lot down to about 350 that we can show people and still retain friends and family who will visit us. We will buy one of those digital picture frame things which can spin through our trip and sit quietly in a corner somewhere.

Its still too early to say what we felt about the whole process, we are just two jet-lagged and slightly bemused seniors who have finally put down the backpacks and are wondering - What Now?

Brian

I am sitting here in Brian's office surrounded by the stacked furniture and crockery that we packed away before we left (things that we might have been upset about if broken) and wondering if there are some things we can get rid of. My sister in law Cath and I already have a car boot sale date booked, this was after I unpacked and hung up clothes and decided that after five months of having two sets of clothes I didnt need the number I was putting back in the wardrobe.

It is good to be home, but its also quite strange. The last five months has been exiting, tiring, varied and very very interesting and I must admit to feeling a little deflated at the moment. This may be partly due to jet lag and being a bit weary after two broken nights and I am sure my mood will improve as the house gets back to normal and I have met up with some of my old friends. I did my first food shop today and that seemed very odd, cooking and shopping are something else to get used to again.

As Brian said, Cambridge looks lovely in June and our garden is looking suprisingly good, the allotment too is burgeoning, thanks to Caths hard work, so there are lots of nice things to do and lots to look forward to. It is also wonderful to see Sophie, Douglas, Laurence and all the other members of our family who are here in Cambridge after so long.

So, onwards and upwards, perhaps planning our next (shorter) travels in 2010.

Tess