They Made It!

One of the planes which managed to squeeze itself out of the foggy chaos that was Heathrow yesterday was my daughter’s flight. Take off was delayed 40 minutes of course, landing was over an hour and a half late and there was an awful, long wait at baggage reclaim during which the rumour began to spread that the bags had been left behind in fog-ridden London until they finally came tumbling out onto the conveyor belt.

And suddenly there they were; tired but relaxed, bronzed and healthy looking – the three intrepid travellers.

When she got home Biddy found the place somehow smaller. I suppose we all go through this, do we? Especially if we are away for a longer time in a place where things are very different.

I remember when I came back from a mind-expanding year living in Greece, when I was 20, finally getting home and sitting in the living room in Liverpool thinking how different everything looked to how I recalled it… and how small. And over the next days I found the house, the street, the city - everything - somehow smaller, less imposing, tamer. It’s as if you leave something behind, as if something dies; a childhood image of the place you have lived where things seem bigger than they are – and now you have eyes which have seen the world from a different perspective. It was very unsettling for me and it will be for Biddy too, I expect, but it’s part of growing up. It goes along with realising that your parents are people as well as parents… ho hum.

Anyway, it’s great to have her back.

Between them, the three girls took something approaching 2000 pictures – so we have the nice prospect of going through them over Xmas, and New Year and probably up to Easter!