Saturday, August 02, 2003

 
Turns out total weight of "stuff" shipped home was 150kg!!! That doesn't include jim and me by the way.

Now in Singapore airport featuring
1. Orchid gardens for original photos the reprise
2. Toilets which flush automatically when you stand up.
3. SHOWERS! hurrah.
4. Jim spending a million years putting subtle changes in the website for the amusement of Dermot the dog and Rutter, the SARS vector. Nice computers.

SO excited about going home forgot to be upset about leaving Australia - I'm sure it will be a delayed grief reaction when the realisation of TimTam loss, "Too easy"'s and total absence of dooners really hits me. Cannot wait to see the assorted generations of Whittons/ Manson-Whittons/ Docherty-Whittons/ Massey-Whittons. I'm going to give them all a big snog (and SARS probably).

Will also make 'soon' appointments to see the Stuart/ Ros/ Suzy/ Matt+Vicky/Sally-Anne/ Stephen/ and y'all as soon as I get my rota (Wednsday) so get ready.....

LOTS of love
natalie
xxxxx
Natalie posted this at 9:40 AM.

Thursday, July 31, 2003

 
Shipped 51kg of assorted didgeridoo based souvineers home. Bought 2 new suitcases. Have filled both (>50kg worth I suspect). Jim is getting a bit twitchy about something called a baggage allowance - never heard of it myself.
Picked up the 18 films of pictures from our Kakadu/ Darwin/ Alice/ Uluru/ Sydney adventure - the girl in the shop phoned us to tell us they were ready 5hours early because the pictures were so good. Expect to be thoroughly bored by the whole thing if I see you in the next week or three.
Getting my mobile reconnected in 52 hours- hurrah!

lol
noo
xxxxxxx

Natalie posted this at 2:18 PM.

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

 
Sold my poor little bike (sob!), threw away the suncream (hurrah!), faced the back of the freezer (brrrr...).
Natalie posted this at 7:54 PM.

 
Back in sunny Southport! Had a splendid 2 hours in Sydney visiting all our old haunts, taking in an opera, going on the ferry etc. Now frantic packing.
Jim and I both have SARS - Tom Rutter gave it to us. On descending in the plane into Brisbane we became completely deaf due to mucous redistribution. Lovely peace and quiet has enhanced our communication no end.
Now is the time to tell you that the countdown clock is set to midnight on your computers time. Thus you should know we arrive at 15.00 GMT on Saturday. Hurrah!


Natalie posted this at 9:02 AM.

Monday, July 28, 2003

 
At last we went SHOPPING! I bought lots of art. We might need a new suitcase. Last full day of holiday, then back to Southport to scrape 6 months of accumulated diet coke residue out of the carpet.
Have just had an email from an Aussie doc who's gone to England. She's appaled by the NHS - which must be worse than I remember. Suddenly a bit scared of starting work at home again - what? you mean I have to work more than 40hours a week??
Off to swear a bit more on the chatroom now.

nataliexxxx
Natalie posted this at 5:20 PM.

Sunday, July 27, 2003

 
Sorry about the delay - did you miss me? After another day in Darwin we flew to Alice Springs and got our campervan.
Bizzarely Jim has taken to the life of campervanning like a duck to water, only with more sleeping and more use of BBQ facilities. We are getting in touch with our inner retiree by driving sedately along the roads with queues of traffic behind us, only to speed up on the straight bits. Joy.
Met the Rutter who has changed colour since we last saw him. Then to Ayres rock which is hugely impressive - partly in the sense that there is buggerall else near it. The whole shades of red sunset thing was slightly lost on me (being red-green colourblind). Out of respect to the traditional owners (and despite our newfound enthusiasm for ascending vertical things) we decided not to climb it but instead to do the base walk - 10km. Fortunately Rutter has a handheld GPS because I'm sure we'd never have navigated around the rock along the well signed path by keeping the rock on our right. Needless to say Jim and Tom spent the whole time looking at the GPS - apparently our topspeed was 15.4km/h (they ran for a bit to up that) and our total trip time 2hrs54mins.
Now back in the Alice for another few days of shopping before HOME in six days to see the Tom and the Tess and the rest. Can't wait.

See y'all soon!
Natalie posted this at 6:14 PM.