I am sitting in my kitchen singing along with my favourite gentle jazzy tracks, sipping a 2016 Valpolicella as my ragu slowly simmers. Goodness, how long have I been waiting for this?

Alone, but that’s OK for an INFJ only child like me. Home is, after all, home.

The flight from Hong Kong surprised me with its smoothness. I don’t normally like long  flights, preferring to break my journey but the 13.5 uninterrupted hours (12 actually) meant that I was able to catch a decent amount of sleep. It did help that I wore myself out properly on Thursday running around doing last minute stuff and a good session on the treadmill.

My final departure from 102 SBL was a little fraught as Ms J reminded me that there are no airport buses from DB after 7 now. The tiny demand for flights out doesn’t justify it. So we had to get taxis. I have brought home all of my winter woollens so my luggage was well over my already generous allowance. I was really worried that I’d be told to leave my stuff there but it turns out that I wasn’t the only one with a lot of baggage. We were surprised to see so many young people at check-in, leaving Hong Kong for a new life somewhere else, their life so far bound up in their suitcases. There has been an outflow of people this year.

Check-in staff were really thorough with my pre-departure paperwork, in contrast to my arrival, where no-one even looked at my passport let alone checking any other documentation. I breezed through.

So, I’ve spent most of my time since arriving trying to set up the new WiFi to connect with the fibre optic broadband that was put in after our departure last year. It’s been an angry, tearful time with me at one point yelling at John over Whatsapp chat, telling him  that this wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t gone to HK. I’m not exactly proud of that. Sorry, J. Anyway, as you can see, it’s up and running now.

I went for my first run outside for a year this morning, which was delightful, and then I popped down to Waitrose, which was a much more glum experience than I’ve remembered. None of the staff wore masks, though most customers did, those who didn’t strutting around as if they had something to be sanctimonious about. There were a lot of missing vegetables in the now gloomy and unlit fresh veg section and stock duplications to fill space, but that might just have been because it was late on Saturday afternoon, and not because of Brexit. Still, I managed to find all of the things missing from my delivery yesterday. 

You realise exactly how expensive Hong Kong is when you buy all sorts of exotic things like ginger, and coconut cream and coriander and the bill comes to only £21.

You see those flowers in a photograph? I came across those on my doorstep this morning as I went out for my run. I spent the whole 45 minutes wondering which secret admirer they were from, and there was no card when I opened the box. Then I noticed a Whatsapp from my new neighbour who had forgotten to cancel her weekly flower order before going away, and had passed them on to me. That was lovely, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine that happening in Hong Kong.

There is so much to be done after a year away but I shall tackle it bit by bit. Happy Saturday.