Back from the cold....

We just landed back from our Christmas trip home. It was lovely; family, the snow, fresh air and no travel problems whatsoever - amazing! When we left, Heathrow was only only operating a third of flights, but ours left on time and arrived on time - at Heathrow (many did not, they got diverted elsewhere). We picked up our hire car and travelled the M25, also with no hitch.

It was strange seeing England looming in the aircraft. Where we would normally be getting excited about the greenness of it all, the fields and trees - instead everything was white with snow. It has been about 3 years since I saw any real snow - so it was lovely, and great to breathe in some cold fresh air. 

We managed to see all of our kids while we were over which was great, especially as it was a surprise for most of them, we weren't expected home for Christmas. Caz was also able to share her mum's 60th birthday which was a great surprise for her too. Christmas day was with my family in Hemel Hempstead at the brother Ian's house. Everyone knew we were coming home except my mum and dad. We had a Skype link to one of my other brothers, Steve, and his family in Bristol as they wanted to see my mum and dad's face when they arrived and saw us there. It was a classic double take when my mum saw us - "what are you doing here!" Brilliant!


Caroline's daughter lives in our house while we are here, so we stayed as a visitor in our own home - weird. It was so strange to stay in our house, with our family round us, but with none of our things in it. Boxing Day was with Caroline's family in our house. I bought some logs so we could have the fire burning all day as it was so cold. Rochelle had so much food we could have fed the entire village, but we gave it our best shot to finish it off!

It was all over far too quickly and now we are back in the desert. Back to work tomorrow for me :-(

Oh well...only 9 days before the kids are out with us over here and I'll be off again - yippee!