Home

Well, it's a long flight home, but a happy one. Avoiding the drama of the plane with the big hole in it, our flight was on time and without incident, touching down at what would have been the civilised hour of 8.00 p.m., but for the fact of my case being on the very last trolley load off the plane, and me being at the wrong end of a 25 minute queue in the quarantine check-out. So I didn't get home till 10.00. Peter brought Joel home ten minutes after that (Paul is away for a bit: back very soon), and it was wonderful to see my boy, so tall and strong he nearly bowled me over with his bear hug.

We had hot chocolate and exchanged stories for an hour or so, then I slept, woke at 5.00, and then again at 8.00 and walked up to Ceres to let the chickens out (a fortnightly commitment to a co-op in an environmental park). It was lovely to be on the creek again, to see it full of water, and to see the golden wattle in bloom. In the garden at home, the hellebores and daphne are flowering, and best of all, last night I heard the little "cree cree cree" of a frog. I didn't blog when next door's cats caught Herbert last year: just too sad. But this was definitely the same species, so it seems as if Herbert's mating calls did have some effect... I think this one's probably called Herbert, too.

It's too wet for tennis, so it's a day for laundry, sorting out the travel receipts and preparing for the week ahead.