How the mighty are fallen....

So this is a bit sneaky....It's a collage of a photograph taken yesterday afternoon on the hotel roof terrace of cocktails with the Sugarloaf mountain in the background....and gin and tonic on the train to celebrate the fact that V's well deserved promotion kicked in today!

It's been a long and peculiarly shaped day. Of course, the UK's "today" had started before we left Rio on our 10.5 hour flight back to Heathrow. Although the flight was packed, we both managed to sleep quite well, but of course it is never really restful. Being full of Lebanese food, I ignored the evening "dinner" service and put earbuds in, with music on my phone, and my eyeshade on, and let the activities around me wash over me. We arrived in good time at Heathrow, although it took a long time to get off the plane and on to buses, which took us back to the main Terminal 5 where our luggage was sniffed by a dog, as we walked past. Hmmmm.

Zero delay in passport control and as we were hand luggage only we didn't have to worry about waiting for the luggage delivery. It seemed a lot less chaotic there than I had been expecting, but perhaps it's ok in the middle of the day. Because BA had unilaterally cancelled our 1415 flight to EDI and offered us one at 2000 instead, we had taken the option of getting train tickets. So we had to trek into London to get to Kings Cross, and unfortunately missed the train on which we had reservations by about two minutes. This gave us chance to pop into the first class lounge, though, where we were able rapidly to freshen up, and then onto a train 30 minutes later, which sadly decided it was stopping at pretty much every lamppost between London and Edinburgh. Mind you, we arrived back in EDI pretty much around the time BA thought we should be leaving LHR, so I count that as a win. A quick taxi home (in the rain...) and I was in the shower pronto and feeling much fresher (which has led me to catching up with my blips...). We were also lucky because the train was very busy, but when we pitched up outside the train door asking whether we could get reservations, the train manager went online and managed to book probably the last two adjacent seats for us.

V is also at home, sending me pictures of her boys and also the present for her promotion which her husband commissioned from a jeweller in Uruguay, and which she carried back unbeknownst, thinking it was part of a present for her boys from F, her sister. Great intrigue!

And I'm glad to be home, although I couldn't help but notice - as I did when we arrived back from Barcelona on August 3 last year - how much the nights have drawn in.