In England's green and pleasant land...

Lots to report. I write from sunny Southend, having contrived to steal the good weather from Sydney and bring it in my suitcase. Alice and I are sweating it out in a positively balmy 26 degrees and enjoying the green of the garden (created by the rain that swamped the Great British summer until our arrival).

Getting off the ground in Sydney was quite a performance - we were delayed by 4 hours and since Qantas, during their week horribilis managed to send us a text to say so, we enjoyed a very quiet day at home rather than mooching around the duty free lounge with a load of pilgrims (surely they were supposed to get the hell out of Dodge when the Pope left?). It was the bleakest day of the Sydney winter so we hibernated and gave Alice as much sleep as possible. Alice slept on and I hopped around excitedly, as a call to Qantas about the delay had also revealed that someone had been so foolhardy as to upgrade a baby to business class. And her mother, of course. The only downside was that in the move towards the front of the plane, my request for a bassinette had been lost. Well, ladies and gentleman (I think that Benignus is the only guy who reads this blog), what would you do? A choice between Neil Perry's finest cuisine, Morrissey pajamas and the opportunity to look slightly pityingly at the economy passengers as they turn right on boarding the plane, or hold a baby on your lap for 24 hours? It was a tough one alright.

Fortunately I managed to pull some frequent flyer rank and managed the best of both worlds - in fact, the best of all possible worlds...business class, a bassinette, a spare seat beside me and a baby who slept the WHOLE first leg. She required slightly more entertaining during the second leg, but the Disney channel helped a lot. Here, she enjoys the Wiggles before the stewardess took her for a walk to First Class so that I could eat breakfast.



Alice has coped very nicely so far with a parade of rellies, a lot of new toys and the only thing that seems to be unsettling her is bathtime. Not sure if it's the fact that she's knackered by then or just that she is missing Sid Hen, Keith Sheep and Cliff Pig but that's still to be conquered without a tantrum.

Sleep-wise, she's doing remarkably well. The first night saw me walking the floor and shh'ing her between 2 and 4 and last night she went right through until 5am. I did try to settle her, but it's just too light too early, so we went for a walk and saw all the old haunts, ("This is where Grandad's boat would be if he wasn't still varnishing it, this is mummy's old school, this is where mummy used to get drunk, this is another bank/estate agent that's been converted to a tanning salon/trendy wine bar" etc etc) Alice got bored and dropped off so hopefully tomorrow she'll make it through to a more human time. I am off out with the three graces (alias Jenny, Rosie and Ruthy) tonight, so I really hope so.