Home again

Back in Oxford! Arrived at 5:15am as the temperature was struggling to rise above freezing. Thick frost and grey clouds greeted me as I walked from the bus to my home. Quite a contrast with the 27C and sunny skies that I left behind in NZ!

The trip was uneventful...which made it seem rather longer coming back than going. I left Auckland at about 1pm Boxing Day, and my arrival time was 6:15 NZ time the next day. Rather more time in an airplane than is comfortable, to say the least. They did turn us out into the Singapore airport for 2 hours, but it was at some horrible hour (in NZ time) like 2 in the morning, so I was unable to fully appreciate looking at Ferragamo shoes and Gucci handbags (okay, you're right, I am never fully appreciative of these sorts of things!), nor was I in the mood to avail myself of the gym and swimming pool. They do offer computers with free internet access, so I amused myself for a while answering emails.

I did learn a couple of things on the return journey. Although I was reluctant to leave New Zealand and end my fabulous work/vacation trip, after spending over a day in the cramped economy class of an airplane, I found myself longing for home! Amazing how quickly one's perspective can change. I also learned that British Airways and Qantas seats must be ever so slightly different - I was (relatively) comfortable on the Qantas flight on the way down, but on the BA return flight my knees were really painful after about the first 6 hours.

Unlike the Qantas flight, the BA flight did not offer us food at regular 1.5 hour intervals. In fact there was a stretch of about 10 hours when they left us entirely alone. I was amazed at how many people just went right to sleep, and seemed to stay asleep! I did manage a couple of hours, but the rest of the time listened to music on my iPod, watched movies and wandered about trying to relieve my sore knees.

Movies - I think I watched five. Here are my reveiws:

Wall-E - Described in the Dallas Morning News as "Pixar's surprisingly political postmodern masterpiece," it is about the environment, consumerism, technology, and...okay it's a really fun movie about a robot with a cockroach for a friend, and...well, I won't spoil it for you.
Harry Potter and the prisoner of somewhere that sounds like Azerbaijan (but isn't) - mildly entertaining.
Ghost Town - a good part for Ricky Gervais of The Office - silly premise about a man who can see ghosts, who all nag him to do things for them so they can rest in peace - again, mildly entertaining.
Julia - an alcoholic woman kidnaps a young boy in order to get money to escape her circumstances - no happy endings with this one. Tilda Swinton as Julia is fantastic.
Bottle Shock - about the rise to fame of California's Napa Valley wines in 1976 when they won against French wines in a blind tasting in France. Funny, interesting...and brought back happy memories of my years living in California.

I tried to watch Mamma Mia. I really tried. I've been told how funny it is, how entertaining, how great the music is. A friend gave it this most rave of reviews - "Even my husband liked it." But...well...first of all, I don't really like musicals. Except perhaps for the ones on the Simpsons, but then, they are spoofing musicals. Opera? yes; musicals? sorry, not so much. Second, I was never an Abba fan - my tastes ran to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Santana and others on the more 'Rock' side of the spectrum, or musicians more towards the 'folk' side, like Joni Mitchel, Joan Baez, James Taylor. And finally...I find it hard to get excited about a movie whose premise is that a young woman doesn't know which of the three men her mother had a summer fling with is her father. Really -- how many parents of a young girl would say that their dream for their daughter is that she sleep with multiple men in a summer and have a child by one of them? So why do we find such behaviour (and its outcomes) so amusing?

Well, piles of mail await me, and the suitcase is still only partly unpacked.

This will be my last travel blog. Someone has suggested I keep blogging, but I fear my life in Oxford will not be so enthralling - I have visions of blogs that read: "I woke up and had a coffee. Then I went to work. I worked on a report. I came home and went for a run. I ate dinner. I went to bed." I'm sure I would not have many readers for long.

On the other hand, I have enjoyed writing this blog, and may start a new, more 'reflective' blog. If you ask me nicely, I'll let you know how to find it. But first, I have a few days of vacation left - I'm off to my cousins' farm in Dorset tomorrow.

Thanks for listening!