full circle

So, back in Sydney. Back in Manly. The sun is shining and everything is familiar and comnforting and beautiful.

Back at Manly backpackers - a new lick of paint, a few things moved around but still the same old place. Music cranked up on weekend days. Lively, lovely people. Full of Poms and some of the old crew - Paul and Michelle, Jimbo and Ash, Russ, Lindon and Tall Guy...

The bus journey was hell - 14 hours long overnight and very little sleep but good company in the form of a Scotsman I met on the Nimbin trip and an Irish girl. We drove in from the north, down the freeway until there it was - the harbour stretching out infront of us. Small boats bobbing along, ferries chugging back and forth, Tthe Opera House winking away in the sunshine. The bridge stood proudly over it all and I felt full of emotion and fondness and awe. It felt like a triumphant return.

Back on the ferry to Manly - that trip I did everyday with Danielle and we took together last February as we headed south for a new adventure. How much had happened since. How many things I have seen and how much distance I have covered, these were turning over in my mind as I came 'home'.

Because Manly is just a beautiful place - a stunning beach, lovely wharf, great shops and trendy cafes, average but fun nightlife and a real community feel. There was the Honolulu Grill where Steven took me for lunch on the day I arrived and there were the volleyball nets where we used to sit and sunbathe at the weekends. In the distance is Shelley Beach - host to many, many barbecues - not least that on Christmas Day with Danielle and her family and our close friends.

If this post is self-indulgent - screw it. I've had an amazing time in New Zealand. I've seen penguins and dugongs, watched whales breach in two different oceans, swam with whalesharks and seen countless kangeroos, emus, kookaburras, snakes, spiders and lorikeets.

I've eaten bushtucker and learned about aboriginal art, life, culture. I've climbed to the top of an amazing waterfall (Jim Jim) and slept in a swag in the outback.

I've flown over the desert and barrier reef, and helicoptered over the amazing Bungle Bungles. I've flown a plane and ridden a chopper in 1770. I've dived one of the world's best wreck dives (SS Yongala) and scuba-ed on the Great Barrier Reef.

I've tasted amazing wines at Margaret River and average ones at Hunter Valley. I've cooked snags on a stone in a campfire in the Blue Mountains and worked in the rat race at Darling Harbour.

I've waited tables, poured pints, made beds, worked in a strip club, pandered to doctors and production managed magazines for a massive company.

I've made lifelong friends and met people from all over.

And now it is over.

Almost.

This weekend I've met up with Steve again, drank red wine with him,smoked a shisha with him and joined him and John for a 4.5km run at 7am along the soft sands at Manly followed by breakfast at the Honolulu grill.

I don't ever want to leave. But I really do. I have four weeks in New Zealand to come and then home to see all my family and friends for Christmas. It's not such a bad life...

The surprise, the wedding, the ex

SO I am back in England - for two weeks only.

It has been a carefully planned surprise for my dad's 70th birthday and has involved much secrecy, mild deception and nerves - particularly on the part of my mother.

Still after 25 hours of flight from Melbourne via Dubai to London Heathrow, my dad was suitably surprised as I walked through the exit gates.

Mum had told him that my cousin would be returning early from Toyko and my aunt had telephoned to ask him to pick her up - as they were flying to Spain that very day. Being a generous soul, he agreed. But he admits cursing Miranda's name as he waited for the delayed flight in the arrivals hall.

Only for it to be me causing all the bother and arriving the day before the long Easter weekend.

His face completely dropped from the arranged smile to absolute shock. His mouth was open, he looked around him as if thinking, "Er why am I here? who am I? What's going on? Have I gone mad?"

Naturally, I talked ten to the dozen the whole way home and was greated my two shrieking banshees (my sisters) and four very shocked nieces - who had also been in the dark about my arrival.

A boozy dinner of spag bol and meringue on the patio followed. It was almost as if I had never been away.

Luckily for me, the weather is beautiful here - warm (for April), sunny and spring-like. There are a neighbouring farmer's lambs in our fields, primroses on the banks off our wood and the last of the daffofils. The Magnolia tree outside my bedroom window is still in (browning) blossom and the trees are beginning to bud.

I sank into my lovely lovely double bed with its soft soft mattress which I cunningly wrestled from the 'divorce' last year.

Ah and onto that, I know at least several people are keen to hear the gory details of meeting up with Craig. Emboldened by Steven's recent podcast mentionning Fleur, I can't be bothered to encode this.

He picked me up on Friday around noon, after chatting to my family and being scrutinised and criticsed (in 'bantering' form - oh dear) by them. But he coped very well (he has had to put up with my sisters' rather cruel sense of humour on many previous occasions).

I was being taken for lunch but we didn't know where - we drove around the stunning Cotswolds for a time before ending up at The Bell at Sapperton - a gastro pub popular with second homers in the area. After a drink there, we proceeded to the more homely Daneway pub down the road (where we used to walk when I was a child) and attempted to order a bite to eat before the 2pm cut off.




As is usually the way with us, we missed it and had to make do with a drink in the sunshine, surrouned by the stunning countryside. It was friendly, easy, comfortable, lovely and a little emotional. But, he has a girlfriend and doesn't really need me coming back for two weeks and going off again and messing him aorund. I haven't seen him since but I am sure I shall soon.

On a more serious note, I have rediscovered many of England's most pleasing pleasures such as Marmite (oh, how I've missed you - Vegemite sucks in comparison) and sherbert lemon. The latter I had never forgotten that I like a lot but I realised I liked it more than I remembered. I know I should eat lots of it while I'm back (it is it's purpose after all and wants me to eat it) but, rather like my Easter choclate, I fear it will become a nasty habit that I can't kick and that I will have withdrawal symptoms when I go back to Australia without vast supplies. So I am eshweing it for a more healthy lifestyle... Oh my waistline how you have grown already...

My friend Laura was married on Saturday to her childhood sweetheart Shane. I have known Laura since our days fetching and carrying as slaves at Bowden Hall Hotel and from a few weeks dating her brother when I was 16.

The wedding was held at Tortworth Court in South Gloucestershire - a stately manor home. Laura looked stunning in a ruffled, princess -style dress. She looked like a bridal model with her tiny waist, long dark hair, tanned skin and good looks. I would upload some pictures but somewhere in transit I have lost the USB cable which connects my camera to computers. Which is bloody annoying.




Sally, one of my oldest friends, and fellow Bowden Hall ex-employee joined me at the wedding and we a good giggle catching up, running barefoot through the gardens and dancing on the Cotswold stone wall at the bottom of a hill while we waited for the evening do to start. This was much to the amusement of the groom who caught us being very silly.

Mind you, most people at the wedding saw us dancing in the evening - why be serious on the dancefloor?!

Anyway it was a beautiful wedding with the breakfast in the Orangery - a glasshouse building - an effective chocolate and cream theme and yummy cake. It as funny to see all the elements Laura has been emailing me about for months come together - the cake, the dress, the shoes, the tiara, the invitations and so on.

Mr and Mrs Forsythe are now in the Maldives - the lucky pair.

Anyway I have rambled on enough... again soon.