It was a good three years since I'd had Christmas in Australia, and Russ had never experienced the heat of Australian summer, so 2012 seemed liked the year to address both of those things.
I love Christmas, it's my favourite time of the year. I love cooking Christmas dinner, I love wrapping presents and I also love sitting outside of an evening, eating mangoes and drinking white wine so moving to the northern hemisphere means that I can really only enjoy about 50% of those things during the festive season. Not this year though. This year we were getting an Aussie Christmas! We did have an English Christmas the weekend before we flew out which mean we got two Christmases, no harm there. Didn't have to miss out on making my turkey from the Jason the turkey farmer in Surrey and still got lots of presents from and for my in laws. A few days before we were to get on the plane though I came down with a really bad cold and a quarantined myself from Russ in the hopes that he wouldn't get it, days past and I got over it and russ seemed totally fine. I worked from home on my last day of the year before we headed to the Hilton at the airport to stay the night before flying out that morning.
Flight was pretty good, I think we got some sleep, watched a few movies, sat next to a French guy who was really in to midnight oil and we avoided the airplane food. By the time we got to Abu Dhabi we were hungry and ready for a walk so we fed and wandered and did a little duty free shopping before getting back to board the plane to oz. That's when Russ started to look pale. He'd lasted all that time and then on the last leg started to come down with my cold. We dosed up on valerian and slept through most of the flight but a cold on a plane is not fun, particularly when you're on that plane for 14 hours. Russ did very well to maintain his humour through it.
I always watch for the moment when we cross over the coast to Australia for the first time on this flight, usually it's somewhere near Kalbarri in Western Australia so all I see is red and then we dip out again and go around the great Australian bight before crossing in to Victoria. Everyone on the plane is asleep and the blinds are drawn so I feel like a thief sneaking forbidden glances at the terrain below.
John and the girls met us at the airport with signs welcoming us home. Jet lag wasn't that bad, I think for Russ he was mostly feeling the effects of his cold, we sat that night outside at Johns where Tam made us lamb and salad and drank wine in the warm night air. Summer!!!
Got up early the next morning and headed out to Safeway with Jack to get cold things for Russ and reminisce over all the things I can't get in London. All the Christmas things were in the shops as well so it made things extra nostalgic. I bought huge mangoes, cherries, grapes and rambutans for breakfast for us and we went back and made platters. We spent most of the day recovering in the aircon and had people over for a BBQ in the afternoon. We had quiet Christmas in Bendigo this year, Russ, Dad and I. We had mangoes on the deck in the morning and turkey in the afternoon. Did a little Boxing Day shopping at the market place before heading back to Melbourne for new year.
We spent a good bit of time in st kilda which was fantastic, easy to get into the city, easy to walk to acland street and we really got in to swimming at the st kilda baths while we were there as well. Lovely salt baths of filtered and warmed sea water looking out on to the bay with a hydrotherapy pool heated to 30 C. We spent hours swimming there and then we'd head down to acland street for dinner.
Apart from the whole myki thing, Melbourne hasn't really changed much, rents have gone up but everything else seemed the same. We even went out to the preston market and I showed Russ around where I used to live. I love that I can visit it like a tourist and really enjoy showing Russ around and being there. It does get harder and harder to leave.
We did get to head to Tassie on this trip and stayed with Monique and Rob, they showed us around every where and we went up to cradle mountain. Was a bright sunny day when we went the rebut by the time we got to the top it was freezing and raining, back down again and the sun returned. We had been planning to go to Hobart and port Arthur but the bush fires burnt out where we were going to stay and blocked the only road to port Arthur. Next time.
We didn't want to go when it go to the end of the trip. We did have a few days scheduled in Dubai on the way back though. We mentioned to the hotel that it was my birthday an our honeymoon so they upgraded us to a suite. Our room wasn't ready when we arrived so they let me use the spa facilities to have a much welcomed shower before we headed out to meet Bec. Bec, Mater and I headed off for pedicures, I had a mani and eye brow threading as well, at one point I had so many women working on me I felt like a car. They did a gorgeous job though. Jet lag really hit us by the evening and I almost fell asleep fully clothes in the giant bathtub before dragging myself out and ordering room service.
We did lots of sight seeing on my birthday, headed out to souk madinat and checked out old dubai before grabbing dinner at the Dubai mall and watching the fountains. We swam every morning and the pool was perfectly temperature controlled, while we swam the helpful pool attendants left fruit and cool drinks by our sun loungers. After the first day Russ got used to it and swam up to the loungers expectantly only to look disappointed when they were late bringing the fruit on our last day. We're planning to use up our frequent flyer miles on a trip back in summer, which will be insanely hot but perfect for swimming and relaxing which is all we want to do.
We've been back in London for a bit now and the cold showy weather has lingered on, can't wait for summer to come back so we can get some warmth back in to our bones.
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