Home Again Home Again, Bippety-Boop

We are back home in London again, safe and well, save for one moment of excitement as we approached Singapore Changi airport at the end of the Darwin-Singapore leg of the flight: the aircraft descended towards the runway, the flaps extended, the wheels were lowered, the engines began to be throttled back, the runway lights slipped past underneath us....and then suddenly the nose pitched upwards at a sharp angle, the engine noise increased to a roar, and the aircraft climbed back into the sky. I suggested to Judith that the landing had been aborted at the last moment because of another aircraft on the runway; this was confirmed a few minutes later by the pilot apologising for the "missed approach" because of a "slower than expected" aircraft ahead of us. "Two landings for the price of one," said Judith. How close we came to going KABAM! KABOOM! KABAMMY-BOOM! may be known only to the Singapore Air Traffic Control people investigating the incident (and perhaps to the inattentive ATC officer who may now be in peril of their job). Certainly, if we'd actually touched down before the abort instruction had been given, it would have been very difficult to take off again....

I then slept most of the way from Singapore to London (more than Judith, in fact); since arrival home, we have unpacked, been to Tesco to replenish the larder, had an early lunch (because we had an early breakfast, at 4.00am, so it feels later than it actually is), and then I cut the grass and sorted my mail while Judith napped for a couple of hours. She is now processing the worm compost in preparation for a trip to the allotment tomorrow, to catch up with things there. The only other issue of note to report is that our robin's nest has not survived our absence, having been pulled out of its hiding place on the fence (presumably by a cat or, more likely, a fox). What happened to the chicks (if indeed they hatched) we cannot say. However, it seems unlikely that any bird would wish to use that nest site again: thus the end of the first and perhaps last attempt by a bird to nest in our garden. Bum poo donkey smells, as we sometimes say.