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So the blog got me to the Osaka airport and there it appeared to abandon me 😆

I did, in fact, get home.

I had a remarkably nice, Japanese style roast beef and salad plate in an airport cafe before heading through checkin, security and immigration.

The flight back to Brisbane was largely uneventful, apart from us sitting in our seats on the plane for over an hour before we left. We were, apparently, waiting for the official engineer's departure paperwork. The pilot said he had no idea what the hold up was. There was nothing wrong with the aircraft but we couldn't leave without the paperwork.

I had a bit of a wait in Brisbane for the next flight so had some brunch and a cup of coffee while I was waiting.  I happened to be in the airport at 11:00 on the 11th of November and was slightly surprised that we were asked to observe a minute's silence (I hadn't really noticed the date) and the airport came to a standstill. Even people who may not have known why we were observing a silence stood still and quiet. And then we all moved on again.

I had plenty of time in Melbourne to make the coach back to Ballarat and then took a taxi back to my place, where things were more or less as I had left them three weeks earlier.

The cats were pleased to see me, and even more pleased to get fed, although I had had someone come in almost every day while I was away, sometimes, staying for a day or three.

I've made it back to work.

I have established a (small) version of Austin and Kaori's snack cupboard. Theirs doesn't just have snacks and I do have a proper pantry, but I also have a cupboard in one of my dressers which didn't have much in it. It now has some Japanese snacks and on the rare-ish occasion when I buy Australian snacks, they can go in there too.

Now I need to turn my attention to the gardens. I need to get the summer and autumn veg seedlings in and I really, really need to weed the garden beds and the patio. This may not happen today. The forecast is for 30d in Ballarat which is a touch too hot for planting out seedlings and ;possibly a bit too hot for vigorous weeding

Some of the seedlings waiting
for their new homes