Made it!

First of all belated Happy Christmas to you all. Life has been a tad busy for the past two or three days and I just haven't found time to hop on to blogger - but those of you who I know on FB will have seen some of what's been happening to me.

I won't backtrack to when I last posted - don't think I can remember anyway. Christmas eve we went round to have a meal and drinks with friends, Christmas morning we had breakfast at another friends, then got myself all finally packed and we went into town and had drinks with Shaz and her son and daughter and from there round to Grant and Tiff's. Left there about 5pm to go to the airport for my flight at 6pm. As many of you will have heard we've had amazing rainfall and now flooding in Central Queensland. The problem on Christmas night was visibility due to low cloud cover. My plane was arriving from Rockhampton but couldn't see to land at Gladstone - two tries and then it went back to Rocky to refuel. Came back about an hour and a half later - another two tries and still couldn't land so carried on to Brisbane without us!!

So Christmas night and all my flights needed to be rebooked! Fortunately I have a one in a million travel agent whose mobile number I have - so at 9pm he with the help of some of his airport staff made the booking changes but it needed to be reticketed before I started on the journey. By 8.30am on Boxing Day he was on the phone to say it was all sorted out. But the weather was still horrendous and I was seriously doubting whether or not I'd be able to get out of Gladstone that day. We made the decision I should try for the 1.30pm flight rather then wait for the 17.30 flight - in the hope that the light would be better earlier in the day. I'm pleased to say the 1.30pm landed OK. So then started my monster journey - a 10 hour wait in Brisbane for my flight to HK, then 5 hours in HK, then an absolutely brilliant flight through to Frankfurt - my section of the plane only about a third full so had an entire row to myself - makes for a fabulous sleep on a 13 hour flight! Then into Frankfurt and overnight at the Mercure hotel at the airport, a yummy breakfast the next morning then back to the airport and on the 12 noon flight to Edinburgh and there were my wonderful family waiting for me.

The first night was just Mum, my sister and brother in law and I and lots of catching up with many laughs. Yesterday we just had a quiet day at home and then last night Mum, Linda and Frank (the two mentioned above), my brother George and wife Lorna and my two nephews Cameron and Lloyd and I all went to the pantomime. It was Snow White. The last time I had been to the panto was with the Girl Guides I think when I was about 12 but it was still as much fun as it was way back then. So lovely to hear how much the little kids enjoyed it and of course that quirky Scottish humour - with the particular slant that only Glaswegians can put on it. It was fantastic. We went for dinner first at a little Italian restaurant just across the road from the theatre.

So today we're heading for Stirling for a spot of shopping while Mum and Linda get their eyes tested. Bloss is coping OK at home - was a bit of a worry there for a while about the floods - so much so that a policeman arrived at the door on Monday warning him to be prepared to evacuate. However the rain has eased these past two days so the panic is over for now - but I think it might be quite a scary couple of months if we start to get a few cyclones moving around.

And now a couple of photos :


My sister, brother and I - I'm the eldest - 9 years older then my sister and 12 and a half years older than my brother



My sister in law and Mum

Me with my two nephews

Bloss and I on Christmas morning

My brother and I



My brother in law and sister

Right then that the latest from me - will try not to take so long to get back next time.  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones and wishing you all the very best for 2011. 

Love Z xx