Home safely

After a marathon journey of 9,180 miles, from Perth via Dubai, we arrived home safely yesterday afternoon. Although it wasn't really the journey we wanted to be making, given that it marked the end of our Big Adventure, it was happily both safe and uneventful. After travelling over 9,000 miles without asking, thankfully Solana only started asking "are we nearly there yet" in the last 30 or so miles, whilst we were in the taxi home from Manchester airport! We arrived home around 2pm, to some lovely surprises - including "welcome home" balloons & banners, flowers, cards, presents, groceries, homemade biscuits and a home-cooked meal awaiting us in the fridge (our first meal home was veggie sausage and bean stew and it was delicious). Thank you so much to Jayne, Anne, Nicola & boys, Gemma & Joe for being so thoughtful and for making our homecoming less disheartening - much appreciated. We arrived home with more luggage than we left with (and will confess that a proportion of this was made from Aussie grapes!). Solana was delighted to be reunited with her toys, especially her Annabel doll, barking dog toy, penguin soft toys and Playmobil. Laura and I were equally delighted to be reunited with our Yorkshire tea bags and enjoyed our first cuppa whilst reading some of our mail. We then all went out for a walk to Shibden Park, to get some fresh air and sunlight in the hope of reducing the jet lag. We were happy to see that the bluebells are still out and there are tadpoles in the pond - Spring is a good season to come home to. We also couldn't resist photographing some of the wildlife - not as exotic as our wildlife posts over the past 4 months but lovely to see familiar animals all the same.

We now have a few days to recover from the jet lag and get our house and our brains in order before returning to work next week. Solana got up at 3:20am this morning, wide awake and desperate to play with her toys, so we fear that 3 days may not be enough time for jet lag recovery! We want to thank everyone who has helped to make our Big Adventure possible - especially Marcus, Lucianne, Rachel and our other friends and colleagues at work who have permitted our absence, held the forts and ensured we have jobs to come back to; Solana's nursery who have kept in touch and are welcoming her back with open arms; Nic & Paul, Gemma & Joe, Jayne and our neighbours Yvonne and Paul who have looked after our house; Anne who travelled with us through Costa Rica; our families who have all kept us regularly updated with life at home in our absence; June & Dave, Gary & Belle and Sandy & Mo who shared their beautiful homes and hospitality with us during our trip; James & Lou who it was great to travel with again for a few days; and a big thank you to all of you who have read our blog and kept in touch via your comments and messages whilst we were so far from home. We look forward to seeing you all over the coming weeks and months and catching up (and maybe even boring some of you with more of our photos!), starting with some of my family over the next few days. We're particularly looking forward to visiting Laura's family up in Troon next weekend, given everything that has happened up there whilst we've been away, but sadly it will not be the same without her Dad, Barrie, being there...

All good things must come to an end and we are very lucky and grateful to have had such an amazing 4 months and created many memories (and thousands of photos!) to last a lifetime.... Solana has been a little star and has actually enjoyed sleeping in around 80 different rooms/beds over the past 4 months and seeing all the different things we've seen; hopefully there will be plenty more (albeit mostly shorter!) family trips to come. Now to start thinking about a new adventure to look forward to!...Read more