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All good things come to an end…

So after two and a quarter years living in London and an amazing three-month holiday travelling through the UK, Italy and France, we arrived back in Sydney this week.

The nights have been spent battling jet lag with an overactive mind full of all the sights and sounds of the wonderful places we have been. The days have been about getting reacquainted with our home town, finding what has changed and what has stayed the same, and the not so glamorous daily tasks required to unpack and settle back in.

The first impressions of being back in Sydney these past three days are a mix of birdsong, change in seasons and temperature, nature, the local lingo and food related:

  • From the drive home from Sydney airport through the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, stepping through the gate to our house and inhaling the scent of gum trees and the flourishing masses of gardenias in our front garden
  • Feeling like we had stepped into a furnace the first day when we ventured out into the 39 degrees Celsius heat (and it is still not officially summer), and getting used to the humidity

Sydney decked out in summer colours

 

  • Surprise at the lush, unusually green lawns (there has been quite a bit of rain), and delight in the colours of Sydney summer of purple confetti on the ground from the jacaranda trees, purple and white agapanthus spurting in most front gardens, and multi colours of bougainvillea
  • The reassurance of the true-blue Aussie gum trees and banksias
  • Waking up to the sound of kookaburras laughing, and a backdrop of cicadas during the day and at dusk
  • Getting used to being surrounded by Aussie accents and lingo – in person, on radio and TV
  • The taste buds awakening to the juicy Queensland mangoes now in season.

It is hard to believe how much we have done in the past two and half years, and that the almost daily awakening to a new adventure is now over.

However a vow has been made to take the lessons learned and apply to life back home in Sydney – to combine the day to day living with a traveller’s appetite for discovery.

Thank you to all who have read some of this blog. That’s all for now.