Arrivals

Well, we arrived safely at Heathrow. Our flight from Singapore was on the new A380 airbus and I’m here to verify reports of its enormity! There are only so many times you can sit through Transformers (once in my case, and it was 2.5 hours too long) before plane exploration becomes a necessity. Paul, in all his geekiness, had already boldly gone where no Sunas member had been before and nosed around the entire plane. Unfortunately we experienced some pretty hefty turbulance (particularly while Paul was in the men’s room and the air hostessess kicked him out - four times and counting!), so I focused on trying to beat the upcoming jetlag and sleep.


We loved this. We *think* the diagram says 'Get Poked in the Clackers then Puke in Bowl'

My first experience of London from a driving point of view was rain :) No real surprise there! Ok, there’s too many things to write about from a first timer, so I’ll list them here:

• London cabs. Black and cool.
• Red things - telephone boxes, double decker buses and post boxes. Bridget & I kept exclaiming over these - we practically screamed ‘Tourist!’.
• Tudor houses (thanks to Henry VIII) and semi-detached houses.
• Pear cider! Bridge and I are on a mission to try a different cider everywhere we go. We’ll keep you updated on this!
• Trees whose leaves are turning. Green, orange, gold, red, they’re simply stunning.
• Hedges! So many roads are lined with them, and I am becoming insatiably curious to know what’s behind them.

The Sunas tour bus is an X-type Jaguar wagon that we’ve named Mick Jaguar (thanks to Bronwyn Todd for the suggestion!). Apparantly we scored this because Bridget's amazing Dad John ticked a small tiny box that saids 'would you like a luxury car if available? (for no extra cost)

Mick, the newest member of the band. Eco-friendly diesel too!

After the initial shock (and desperately trying to act cool!) we were on our way to Westerham in Kent for lunch at the Grasshopper on the Green pub. There’s a huge personal touch to pubs that I’ve noticed - Allan, the owner of the Grasshopper, greeted us warmly and peppered us with questions in between offering meal & alcoholic suggestions. He then offered for us to use his phone to contact Paul’s Mum (who we’re staying with this week) since our phones were paperweights. My first pub meal was typically British - *gigantic* fish & chips with mushy peas! I had a lovely moment with this, it took me straight back to when I was little and my parents gave me mushy peas for dinner. Oh deliciousness :)

Fish the size of a flugelhorn

We’re spending this week catching up with family and doing touristy things like London, Canterbury Festival and Hever Castle. It’s 8pm on Tuesday night and we’ve all been awake for 36 hours, so are suitably knackered. The plan was to try to stay awake all day in order to knock the jetlag on its head. I think we can hold out for another hour before pure exhaustion kicks in … *snore* ...