Helen Chick
I am now safely in Oxford, and Anne and John have made me feel very welcome which is wonderful.
I arrived early in the afternoon, and in order to address jet lag we took advantage of the lovely weather to go for a walk along the Thames at Marlow. This was very pleasant, and I’m hoping the sunshine and the exercise will help me get used to the new time-zone. Right now, however, it is 9pm here, and 5am at home … and I think the time has come to head for bed.
Three airline travel observations:
- I wore clothes suitable for spring in Melbourne at the start and autumn in Oxford … and totally unsuitable for a hot humid smoggy Hong Kong dawn.
- Airports these days are full of people attached to walls by umbilical cords … or, more accurately, their electrical devices are attached to power points (both obvious and obscured) by power cords. In fact, Hong Kong is very civilised for these needs, with lots of power-points and wireless internet.
- Why is it that I can drift off into a really deep doze in the five minutes before take off, but can’t get to sleep when I actually want to?
Glad you’ve arrived safely. The swans on the Thames brought back memories – we had a huge flock of them living outside our windows at Caversham Bridge in Reading. I love the sound their wings make as they take off and come in to land. It took me a long time to get used to white swans rather than the, to me, normal looking black ones! When the Thames froze over in Dec/Jan, the Thames swans had to be taken to sanctuaries – they can’t feed through the ice.