so it turns out going to australia is a little further than nipping down the local shop for some milk. what a journey though, etihad airlines are bleeding lovely; hundreds of games & telly on demand, lovely food & best of all, free stuff! well i think it was free anyway.. we had a 2 hour stopover in abu dhabi, making the most of the clinique & chanel samples to freshen up before drinking the strongest cup of coffee ever made. onwards for a 14 hour flight to sydney, we were delighted to find we were enclosed on all sides by babies, toys & their over enthusiastic parents. to the sprogs credit, they at least took it in turns screaming.

andrea conceived the idea of a great new book: 101 ridiculous ways to try & sleep in economy class, available nowhere soon. after spending the last 10 hours of the flight watching the little plane on the screen seemingly getting further away from sydney, at least managing to keep my perpetual 'are we there yet' dialogue internalised.

my favourite experience of oz so far? as the plane lands in sydney, everyone erupts into cheers, round of applause & slaps on the back a plenty. can u imagine anyone doing that when they arrive into gatwick?!

our good friend's rani wrongness & gabsta met us at the airport, taking us for a lovely day around sydney. went down to bondi to dip my sea in the ocean (spot the pom), was easily warmer than brighton & i promptly fell asleep on the beach & burnt me conk. off out now for some drinks in newtown before getting an early night to get over this jetlag.

XX