Day 10

Thursday 29/10/09

After finally falling asleep at about 2am, I woke up hoping that the taxi company had found my camera but they hadn’t. Was still feeling pissed off at myself so I sent the boys down to have breakfast while I fumed (and packed) on my own. Came to the conclusion that it was meant to be .. all the talk of karma and the gods must have rubbed off on me .. and resigned myself to not seeing my camera again. The boys were really good about it saying that they have their memories and they don’t need the photos and then Alex piped up with “anyway, you’re so far behind in your scrapping, this will make it easier for you to catch up”. I know he was only trying to help but I couldn’t help laughing/crying.

Arrived with 3 suitcases (one with the laptop in it), 4 little backpacks and my CPAP machine. Left with 4 suitcases, 4 stuffed to the brim little backpacks, 1 large sports bag, 1 laptop bag and my CPAP machine.

Elle and the boys arrived to have a chat before saying goodbye. Left the boys to discuss Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon and went shopping for last minute stuff at the Hard Rock Megastore. Came back to find that our airport transfer bus had arrived so we said our goodbyes and headed out for the airport.

Got to the airport and paid the porters so that I wouldn’t have to try and juggle 3 kids and 11 items of luggage. We could do with some porters at Perth airport .. in fact all of the Australian airports could do with them! Had to hang around the airport for nearly two hours so the boys spent the last of their money on little knick knacks to pass the time. Had Macca’s (again!) for lunch then boarded the plane for the flight home.

I dozed most of the way home while the boys watched the free in-flight foxtel. After a mostly smooth flight, we landed at 6:20 and cleared Customs/Quarantine by 7:20pm. Word of advice: don’t buy woven placemats in Bali .. they’re full of little beasties and AQIS will either seize them or keep them for 2 weeks to fumigate them and charge you $30 (in advance) for the privilege of getting them back. Considering they cost me all of $4, I let AQIS seize them.

Mum met us at the airport and after that we went home, via the takeaway chicken place down the road, by 7:45pm. After dinner, we showed her some of our souvenirs and gave her the presents we’d bought for her. The boys headed for the shower and then Bradley came running down to the lounge room crying about ‘a huuuuge black bug in his room’. Sympathetic mother that I am, I told him to stop being such a sook because it was probably just a hairy spider but he kept insisting that it was buzzing at him. I went to check it out and found a colony of bees had set up a hive on the outside of his window. I told him he could sleep in with me until I got an exterminator to come deal with it. I’d already had him or Drew sleeping in my bed for the past 9 nights so what was a couple more?

Mum finally left at 10:30ish then it was straight to bed for me, complete with nightmares of all the washing to be done and wondering whether the dog would talk to me when I picked him up in the morning. It’s good to be home… I think!