UK Christmas; Dad's 80th Birthday & Bangkok Time!: Nice to be home

I left Wellington, for the UK, on 1 December 2014, at 4.20pm.... My hubby and I went to the airport together, which was really nice, except Dave unfortunately wasn't travelling with me this time, as he couldn't get the extra time off work, though he is joining me in two weeks time! Dave had to fly to Auckland for work and I flew to Sydney! I must admit it was really hard saying goodbye! Though it will be really exciting meeting him off his flight in two weeks time in Manchester. It will be like the movie... "Love Actually"... !!! They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder!

My flight out of Wellington was delayed approximately twenty minutes, not exactly sure why, we weren't advised!! Once in the air I started to relax a little. The three hour, forty minute flight to Sydney went relatively quickly. I arrived in Sydney with time to mooch around the duty free, but didn't buy anything as I was advised its best to buy it in Bangkok on the way through!

I boarded the flight in Sydney on time. We were heading down the runway, all was going well, until we were then advised we had to return to the terminal!!! Apparently there was a drunk passenger on board that was causing issues, and due to safety of others they had to return and offload him!!! The crew had to find his luggage and then re-check everyone else's luggage on board!!! How they even let him board if he was really drunk is beyond me!!!

The flight to Bangkok was nine hours, ten minutes, I was in an aisle seat in the middle four seats, quite a good position as only one person next to me had to pass me. My neighbour was a young female university student, learning physiotherapy from Cronulla, great chick. She was visiting her brother in Rome who is a professional football player. Even though we were late leaving Sydney, the pilot made up time and got us to Bangkok on time. I was expecting to have an hour between our connection to Dubai but we only had approximately thirty minutes. We were allowed to get off the plane but I decided not to get off in the end, as I couldn't be bothered taking my bags with me, but wished I had in the end, as all the cleaners came on board and cleaned up the empty seats, it was a bit chaotic!! Would have been nice to have a walk and stretch my legs and possibly buy duty free. My neighbour chose to get off in the end, but on her return she said there wasn't anything open to buy duty free, so I didn't feel too bad in the end in not getting off.

The flight to Dubai was a further six hours forty minutes. The arrival in to Dubai was on time, but the turnaround for the next connection was extremely tight, I thought we had over an hour and half, but in fact it was only twenty minutes!!! Thankfully when we disembarked the flight their were ground staff waiting for us to escort us to our next connection to Manchester!!

The Dubai to Manchester flight was another eight hours. By this time I was feeling quite tired, but started to feel really excited as I was getting closer to being home and knew that Mum and Dad were waiting for me at Manchester airport. On this flight I had a window seat, a spare seat next to me, then my neighbour. This time it was a young guy who had just finished working in Dubai as a deep sea diver on the oil rigs, he was on his way home to Inverness in Scotland.

Movies watched throughout my flights...

"The Hundred-Foot Journey" (2014) with Helen Mirren.... The Kadam family leaves India for France where they open a restaurant directly across the road from Madame Mallory's Michelin-starred eatery. A lighthearted, enchanting movie, a must to watch.

"The November Man" (2014) with Pierce Brosnan... An ex-CIA operative is brought back in on a very personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in a deadly game involving high level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect. Spy thriller, entertaining.

"Grand Piano" (2013) with Elija Wood .... Moments before his comeback performance, a concert pianist who suffers from stage fright discovers a note written on his music sheet. Not that brilliant!

"The Other Women" (2014) with Cameron Diaz... After discovering her boyfriend is married, Carly soon meets the wife he's been betraying. And when yet another love affair is discovered, all three women team up to plot revenge on the three-timing S.O.B. Hugely entertaining!

"One Chance"... The true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night who became a phenomenon after being chosen for -- and ultimately winning -- Britain's Got Talent (2007). A great storyline.

Overall travelling time 27 hours... a bloody long way in one go!!! I did manage to get about seven hours sleep on and off!

Here's Mum & I very excited to see each other, Dad's taking the pic!!

From Manchester to home is a further one hour drive or just under. I must say it was nice getting home. Mum and I went for a brisk walk around the back lane before it got dark so I could get some fresh air and stretch my legs out after sitting and travelling from one side of the world to the other!!!