A Favourite Thing – #FMSphotoaday

There were so many possibilities for todays #FMSphotoaday challenge. I have way too many favourite things!

One of my favourite things to do is to take photographs, I love documenting things, events etc with photographs and creating memory books/files with them. Another favourite thing is travelling, I don’t actually enjoy travelling but I love visiting and discovering new places.

When in Australia we visited one of my favourite places in the world and took one of my favourte photographs.

 

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Somewhere To Visit…………..Maybe – Wordless Wednesday

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It’s Almost Here!

After a comedy of errors and rather alot of stress our container containing almost everything we own is almost with us.

The day of removal/packing didn’t go brilliantly and we still have an unresolved issue with our removal company, something that I can’t go into at the moment, but needless to say it’s an issue that’s been (and still is) causing us a fair bit of stress. Our shipment/container was supposed to be on it’s way to us almost immediately after being packed and should have arrived in England around the 4th March. Obviously it’s April now, so you may have already worked out that, that didn’t happen! Nope in fact we’ve had to fill out all of our customs forms again because it’s come over on a different ship etc……. And to top things off the removal company in Australia didn’t label some of our “packages” correctly and so this has also provided more problems now that it has all arrived in England!

We’ve been back in England for 3 months now and although it’s gone really quickly and we’ve been extremely busy, we’ve started to miss little things. I’ve started to wonder if we packed the right things in our suitcases. We packed 4 cases, had 3 rucksacks crammed full as hand luggage and I had the biggest handbag I could find, as well as coats………….can you imagine the 3 of us (well 2 really, ‘cus J didn’t actually carry anything) trying to navigate check in at the airport and arrival in England with all of that luggage?!?! LOL

In the suitcases we packed the obvious – clothes and a few special toys, but we also had to pack J’s car seat, he refused to get a new one or sit on a borrowed one so we had to pack his. This took up most of the space in one case. We also had to pack J’s pillow, just packing his pillow case wasn’t an option. We tried changing his pillow before we left and he refused to sleep on it ‘cus he knew it wasn’t his pillow and so decided although we were going to have our sleep issues there was no point in making it worse, we packed the pillow………………….this case I had to sit on in order to close it! And ofcourse we had to pack J’s Ready Bed, we also packed sleeping bags for ourselves, (they took up less room and weighed less than blankets or quilts). We also packed a few of J’s “therapy” items such as his bodysock and his therabrushes. As for toys, somehow, (I’m not sure how), we managed to convince J to only pack the essentials………….his Mario figures and castle (obviously!) and a few special toys and books. And clothes………..we knew it was probably going to be cold, much colder than we had been used to for the past 2 years so we packed several jumpers……………..Do you know how much room jumpers take up in a case?!?!  Hand luggage was taken up with J’s laptop and Ipad and all of Hubby’s medical notes and J’s medical and school notes.

When everything was packed we were just over our baggage allowance so couldn’t possibly pack anything else but over the past couple of weeks I’ve started questioning whether we packed the right things. All of J’s medical notes and school notes haven’t made a blind bit of difference and we’ve been told his Aussie diagnosis and everything we’ve done with him over the past two years is worthless and not valid in the UK, (Ridiculous right?!), so was it worth packing? We started missing alot of things too……….. J is obviously missing all of his toys and books and ofcourse the Wii, (he’s really missing the Wii!), but we’re also missing our beds, airbeds are ok for a while but Hubby’s really struggled to sleep on one and is now “sleeping” on the floor because it doesn’t hurt his back so much and J misses his bed…………….me I’m happy just to get some sleep, I don’t care where I have to sleep, just so long as I get a couple of hours rest! I miss my computer and I really miss my big fridge freezer, I miss being able to do a proper weekly grocery shop and it’s costing a fortune having to go to the shop every other day, (we’ve bought a small fridge since arriving back just to keep milk in etc). I miss my wardrobe, wearing the same clothes every week is starting to bore me. And I miss my photographs! Some of them contain precious memories and it’s a horrible feeling knowing that they’re somewhere out there floating on the ocean, you just have to hope that everything will get to you in one piece.

Our container has been in the UK for almost 2 weeks now and we’re hoping Customs won’t hold it up for too much longer………….it’s going to feel like Christmas when everything arrives!……………..Then we have to have a clearout, we’d forgotten how much smaller houses in UK are!!

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The Long Flight Home

January 12th 2012 was a big day in our little family’s history……………… it was the day we boarded the long flight home.

We arrived at Brisbane Airport very early……………too early really but our shuttle, (which J pointed out was nothing like a shuttle because it was a mini bus and so it was very silly for us to call it a shuttle LOL), had a pick up time of 9am, so off we went. Our first flight wasn’t until late afternoon so we quickly checked our luggage in, one of the pros of arriving so early before our flights was there was no queue for J to have to wait in After checking our luggage in we discovered J had taken a liking to the luggage carousels, he was fascinated and quite happy to sit in a fairly empty part of the airport watching it go around and around. So Hubby and I grabbed a coffee and claimed a bench. About an hour later it began to get a little more crowded and so rather than have to queue at the security checkpoints we decided to move on to the departure area.  It’s a good job we went through the security area early, beating the crowd because Hubby got pulled to the side for an explosives security check. He was carrying J’s Pokemon Rucksack with his toys in and when asked if he had packed his bag himself he replied “no, it’s my son’s bag, he packed it” and pointed to J. With this they decided that it was obviously a suspect bag, but after a quick check everyone will be pleased to know that none of J’s Mario figures contained any traces of explosives LOL

Once at the departure area we grabbed a small bite to eat in the “cleanest” cafe we could find and then went to find our departure gate. J watched our first plane land and then watched as it got loaded up, he was convinced that he had seen his suitcase with his mario tags (that I had made especially for our journey), and played with his IPad for a couple of long hours. Eventually we waved goodbye to Brisbane and walked through the tunnel to the plane. Our first flight was with Virgin and even before we boarded the plane they couldn’t have been more helpful. They allowed us to board first and asked if there was anything they could do to help. Once aboard they gave him J friendly snacks to eat and asked if he wanted anything else etc, just very friendly and helpful…………..very impressed!

Once we’d found our seats, which were near the rear of the plane so that J had less people “looking at him”, (something he doesn’t like), panic suddenly hit us! J froze and refused to sit on his seat because he thought it was “dirty”! After abit of negotiation we managed to convince him that the cleaners had just finished cleaning the plane and the “marks” that he could see were simply the pattern on the seat……………PHEW!

We arrived at Melbourne 2 and a half hours later. We had planned our flights so that we had very quick changes at each airport, less time for J to get bored, stressed etc. We quickly checked in at the international departures desk, unfortunately we did have to wait in a small queue which did begin to get J a little anxious, but no huge meltdowns, Well Done J! Once through check in we made our way through the security, only to be stopped once again, this time at passport control. J had a new passport and I hadn’t thought to bring his old, expired passport with us………….ofcourse it was the old passport that had his visa in. After explaining our situation the security staff made a quick call to immigration before allowing us to leave Australia.

By the time our second flight left it was after 11pm and J was shattered, falling asleep before the plane had taken off. We then had almost 6 hrs of peace whilst he slept, I took the opportunity to grab a couple of hrs myself. The second flight was a very long 14 hrs! I’m relieved that I had remembered to pack a few J friendly snacks because the child’s meal that we had booked for him never arrived and there wasn’t a chance on this planet that he was even going to try the meal he was given. He spent the remainder of the flight playing on his DS and IPod (both batteries were exhausted, the IPad battery had already given up).  The whole plane had a little giggle when we landed and J yelled “WOOHOO! Yes we landed ok!” LOL

We were a little late landing at Abu Dhabi and only had 30 minutes to make from our arrival gate to departure gate, with a toilet break on the way, J had not wanted to use the toilet on the aeroplane and so was pretty desperate bless him. When we arrived at the security check area our hearts sunk……………..I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in one place at the same time! I could see the panic on J’s face and quickly found a member of staff. I explained that J had Autism and there would be no way t all that he would be able to wait his turn in the ocean of people, he was very understanding and guided us through the crowd, straight to the front of the queue. Once again we were stopped, this time I beeped as I walked through the detectors! So I was taken into a small room and quickly checked by a female member of staff and then we were off on the final part of our journey.

Our final flight was bringing us “home”. This time J’s child meal arrived (I had complained during the second flight), so J happily sat and ate a small box of Frosties, without milk ofcourse.  He wouldn’t sleep during the final flight at all, despite being tired and starting to feel a little grumpy. With all of his gadgets having exhausted batteries we set about finding a game that he enjoyed with the in flight entertainment. I think he played on each and every computer game available but thankfully was entertained for most of the flight. Towards the end of the flight he had become quite grumpy, I think just simply a result of tiredness, boredom and needing to move. He didn’t enjoy the landing, it hurt his ears and declared that he never wanted to go on another aeroplane again but overall again he surprised us and we had a reasonably good journey.

Once in London we collected our luggage, the Mario tags that I had made for each piece of luggage had done the trick, they were easy to find and J having to find Mario on the luggage carousel gave him something to do.

Overall it was a very long and tiring journey but I’m proud to say Well Done my little soldier you did a fab job!

We had made it…………….we were home …………………

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The Gallery – World Photography Day

This week Tara over at Sticky Fingers made the theme for the Gallery World Photography Day and left instructions that today’s post should be a photo from today or the weekend.

We’ve decided to “bite the bullet” and go away for a few days, only the second time we’ve done so as a family since J was born. Last night I managed to get J to pack his small case with toys that he absolutely had to take with him

Then I rushed around packing a case with clothes and such like ready for our little trip. We’re going on a small road trip to check out some areas that are on our “we might move to if the area’s right for us” list. This means we will be in the car for quite a long period of time, this is something I’m dreading because half an hour in the car with J is usually more than enough so wish us luck! (I’m thinking we may have a few stops along the way, especially since he hasn’t been in the best of moods this week)

So I took this picture today especially for the Gallery. I think it’s quite a big moment in our lives, we’re all packed and ready to go on our second holiday as a family, hopefully all prepared for a long journey in the car with little man and excited to be visiting what could possibly be our next home.

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