Home, Home, Home!

---

Finances = Green
Fitness = Red
Relationship = Green
Arguments = Zero (& “no” David, we didn’t go opposite ways around!)


Well, here we are. After 12 weeks in the Southern Hemisphere we finally crossed the equator and moved back into the Northern Hemisphere on our way to Miami. (Can I just mention the breakfast on our American Airlines flight from Rio to Miami? What are we supposed to do with a bread roll and no butter, jam or equivalent spread? It was appalling. And we also had to purchase alcohol. We are never travelling AA again!!!!)

But despite our lack of breakfast we arrived in Miami at 5 in the morning to 20-degree heat. Luckily the car we picked up had air conditioning and we were soon heading towards our (luxurious and last) hotel on the Florida Keys. The highlight of this hotel was that it had an adults only swimming pool. Not that we have anything against children but it’s enough having to cope with Mark splashing and trying to duck me without having to consider other children as well!!!

Florida was very hot - up to 35 degrees some days. Luckily we didn’t have to do much other than lie on a sunbed and give our drinks and food order to the poolside waiter. It was very hard and very tiring but we did manage it (just!).

We did manage to do two trips out. The first one was to Key West, as we wanted to watch the sunset celebrations. Unfortunately on the day we picked to go, a storm was brewing over the Gulf of Mexico and it decided to come in and bring a huge rainstorm just at the time of sunset. So we got rather wet and missed sunset altogether! However, we did follow the storm back to our hotel and some of the lightening was amazing.

The second trip was (on our last day) to the Everglades as Mark had always wanted to go on an airboat since watching Gentle Ben as a child. His eyes lit up when he saw the boat although he was quite disappointed when he discovered he couldn’t actually drive it! However, he did enjoy himself and even managed to spot an alligator!

But after the Everglades we accepted that we were finally on our way home and headed towards Miami airport. Actually we were very lucky to leave when we did as 24 hours after our departure, Hurricane Katrina hit Southern Florida. If we had planned to come back a little later, then I think we would still be there now!

We came home to a wonderful welcome home party with our parents and have spent the last few days telling them (or boring them) with all our stories. But we have had a fantastic time and some amazing experiences and wouldn’t change the last three months for anything.

And now we have to get down to the serious business of planning what we do next. No travel unfortunately (and if we’re honest it will be nice to stay in one place for a while - or 2 if we count Bath & LB separately!) but lots of other things to sort out like jobs, houses etc. We’ll keep you posted!

I know we have said this before, but thank you to everyone who has kept in touch while we have been away. As you can imagine, it’s been a little manic since we got back but we will be in touch with you all very shortly.

Hope everyone had a great bank holiday weekend.

Love K&M

---