At long last – the update you’ve all been waiting for! Or something….
So, on 16th December I boarded a plane to come back to the UK for Christmas. Had an 8 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, where I stayed for 5 hours (doing not very much), before the 13 hour flight that took me to Heathrow. As it turns out, I was pretty lucky with the timing because just a few hours before my flight landed it began to snow – heavily. The journey itself was… manageable, but those long haul flights are never fun. Also, because the flight left Brisbane at about 11 pm and I’d had a full day in the lab beforehand, by the time I got home I had been awake for 2 straight days. Some photos of Kuala Lumpur airport and the snow that greeted me on my first full day back click here.
I’ll mention the snow now, because basically it persisted throughout my time back in the UK, apart from Christmas day itself. It was a really nice change to come from the tropical, humid, oppressing heat of Brisbane to sub-zero temperatures and some of the best, persistent snow I’ve ever seen in England. When it was sunny (but still cold) the snow was actually breathtakingly beautiful. I borrowed Alexandra’s good camera and took some photos of the snow around the house, which can be found here. I also made some panoramas from these pics which can be found on the panoramic photos page. One thing I will say about the weather though, is that it caused serious travel issues. These started to hinder on my plans a little, so it did get somewhat frustrating at times. Luckily, a walk in to town through the snow itself usually made me forgive it 
The first weekend I was back I managed to get a train up to Manchester to visit Sam and Jane, and both Amy and Nick met us up there too. The snow in Manchester was even heavier than down south (at this point) and it was awesome fun to go out in. We also visited the German Christmas market that was there and had some warming gluhwein The next day, Sam, Nick, and I braved the blizzards to get some breakfast in a really nice little cafe in Manchester too. Very nice weekend – photos here.
The week leading up to Christmas day itself was reasonably uneventful. Was really good to catch up with the boys who are still in Leighton. Simon, Mark, Wardy, and Step were usually about to meet up for lunch for go for a beer so that was really good. Ended up going out on Christmas eve and seeing a few faces I haven’t seen for a while which was excellent too (although it made Christmas morning a little less than pleasant…).
Christmas day itself was a bit different to our usual. Dad was down in Kent for the day and the rest of the family were otherwise engaged so it was spent with Mum, Alexandra, and aunt Val. One thing I’m glad we did was go down the lane to the Edmonds’ house. Tom and I used to be really good friends a million years ago but I’ve not seen any of the family for a very long time so it was really good to see them and catch up. Paul also kept plying us with champagne cocktails which helped too!
On Boxing day, the boys all took a trip up to Nottingham to Aaron’s new pad. Aaron had organised a trip to Gatecrasher Ultra’s “White Party” featuring Sander Van Doorn and Marco V. We all dressed up in some white silky pyjamas from Primark and danced the night away to some fantastic tunes. Only down side of the whole night was the volume of the music – we couldn’t hear right for about 4 days afterwards…. definitely some permanent damage caused there. Was a really good night though, and good to see where Aaron is (and sample his swimming pool, sauna, and steam room!). Lots of photos here.
On Monday 28th, we had a more traditional “Christmas Day” with Dad coming over and my Aunt and Cousins – I finally got to meet my new baby cousin Max. He’s absolutely adorable, never stopped smiling the whole time. I also managed to bag myself a new webcam (one that works with Windows 7) and another little remote controlled helicopter. Once the family had gone (and the massive dinner eaten) I made my way to Simon’s house for a poker night. Unfortunately lady luck was not with me and I was knocked out pretty early. Simon hosted another night later on in the holiday during which I fared a little better, coming second in the first game which paid for my buy-in on the second game. Still… long way to go before I go pro.
Just before New Year I drove down to Kent to visit Adam, who’d made a special trip back from Japan just to see me (and his fiancee….). His new house is really nice and literally a stone’s throw away from Bluewater shopping centre, which caused some traffic issues as it was the start of the January sales…. Still, we had a really nice pizza and then watched Sherlock Holmes, which was pretty good. Was really nice to see him and Sinead. I also managed to buy myself a couple of pairs of jeans in the sales
New Year’s eve was a classic. We managed to get all my Leighton mates as well as my sister’s and I cooked a curry for 16 people before the rest of the guests arrived and we welcomed in the new decade in style. There aren’t any special comments to make about the night, it was just plain solid fun and I hope everyone who came had as good a time as I did. I used the new webcam to record the night again via the medium of timelapse photography – as of now I haven’t had a chance to go through all 13000 photos to put together a video like I did for the last one, but it is on the list of things to do! For the normal photos of the night click here.
The first weekend of 2010 I took the opportunity to go to London. I stayed with Nick in his nice new apartment and we met up with loads of Oxford people, including Caitlin, Katie, Reeb, Amy & Craig, and many more who popped in to say hi. The next morning we went for a fantastic breakfast in an american style diner in Camden.
Other events in the following week include getting my eyes tested and buying some new glasses (which didn’t arrive before I left the UK…..) and seeing Avatar in 3D with mum & Andy. Ben & Tilly were meant to be coming to visit that week too, but the snow got in the way and they were unable to make it. Fortunately I managed to get to Oxford for a couple of nights the following weekend and meet them there. I also got to see Sam & Jane, Amy, Caitlin, Nick, and Matt who’s doing his DPhil in Oxford. We had curry at Chutney’s and beers & cider in Far from the Madding Crowd, just like old times The next day I met up with Ben, Tilly, and their friends and we went sledging in South Parks, which was AWESOME fun. Ben and Tilly also managed to make it to my house on the way home for a quick roast dinner Oxford photos are here, and there’s a couple of panoramas of snowy white Christchurch Meadows on the panoramic pics page too.
The final week of the trip was a little less fun – I essentially packed up all my worldly possessions (and threw a lot of stuff out that I didn’t need) and put them in to storage ready for when Mum moves house. On my last night in the UK I was alerted to the fact that it would probably be the last time I ever sleep in that house, which was an incredibly sad thought! I’ve lived in that place since I was 6 months old, so I took a moment to say goodbye to it before I left.
Dad kindly got me to Heathrow a good 2.5 hours early for my 10 am flight (no easy task!) so I was lucky enough to check in to an exit row seat for the flight to Kuala Lumpur. Combining that with a much shorter stop in KL, and an unusually pleasant flight from there to Brisbane I can safely say that this was the best of the long haul journeys I’ve had so far. On a somewhat comical note – I bought a new camera at Heathrow airport. That’s not funny, you might think – however, upon my return to the lab Ben came up to me and said he’d bought a new camera too. Turns out we bought the exact same model of camera from the same salesman in the same shop at Heathrow Great coincidence. So look out for some new high resolution photos from my Canon IXUS 100IS (as well as some videos too, as it does HD movies!).
That’s about it for my extended Christmas holiday. It was a fantastic time back in the UK and reminded me how special everyone is back there. I do miss you all!