Death by Doxie : Hello! Welcome!

One of the bestest of best things about having a dog is the way they enjoy your company so very much. A dog thinks you're the bee's knees, the ant's pants, the grasshopper's pyjamas. (I made that last one up, could you tell?) 

They miss you when you're gone, whether you're gone half an hour or half a day. And when you get home they like to tell you how very much they've missed you. And - if they're like Elfi - they like to do it loudly. Very loudly.

Above is Elfi giving me the stink eye because I'm faffing about with my camera when I should be opening the door and lavishing her with pats. Below is Elfi singing me her song of welcome, her "hello!" song. Loudly. And Ferdi looking adorable and happy, and slightly confused (as he so often does). 

11 Things That Happen When You Get Home After Seven Weeks Away

1. The entire household, including the one that always gets up at 7 every single morning, sleeps past ten. And at night, when you ask "Shall we watch one more episode of QI before bed?" there's a resounding YES from everyone even though it's well past bedtime o'clock. 

2. You forget, completely, how to manage emails. You forget to constantly check them, you forget to reply to them, you forget to file them. You forget why you normally treat them with such importance. Which is wonderful (but fades fairly quickly upon re-entry, unfortunately). 

3. Similarly, your usual obsessive checking of Instagram drops to four times daily, rather than four times hourly. (On reflection this one probably says more about my Instagram addiction than anything else...).

4. It can take you a full hour, sometimes even two, to locate your charger and plug in your phone once the battery dies. 

5. Your productivity levels plummet. It seems impossible to fit anything other than a leisurely stroll in-between waking, lunch and dinner. You vaguely remember a time - say, the week before you left for your holiday - when you were the queen of getting things done. Not so much now.

6. You forget how to dress when you're not living out of a suitcase.* Faced with more than five dresses, a pair of shorts and two t-shirts to choose from you are frozen with indecision. And god help you if you've switched seasons. 

7. Related - you don't get quite as excited about clean underwear as you did when you were travelling. 

8. At least three times a day you ask yourself "Am I driving on the right side of the road?". And you have to check all the parked cars (and the oncoming traffic) to get the answer. 

9. You become one of those really annoying couples who say things like "The baguettes in Sydney really are terrible, not like the ones we got in that little French village of Seillans - remember?", and "What was the name of that stunning town in Italy where we ate the best meal of our lives?". You work anecdotes from your recent travels into every conversation, without even realising what you're doing. One minute your discussing the new 'security' legislation and the next you're talking about the tour you did of Lisbon...on a Segway.** 

10. You spend an entire week sorting mail and cleaning the house (so much dust!) and restocking the cupboards, and the whole time all you can think about are the photos you want to edit and the blog posts you want to write (and read! I've missed you all!). 

11. Even though the news tells you the world is going to s**t, everything around you seems relaxed and calm and fun, and kind of new again. 

*We only travel with carry-on! 

**True story (the Segway tour bit)! It was so much fun! 

Hello.

There's certainly been some tumbleweeds about here lately hasn't there? But there hasn't been any tumbleweeds in my life. (Well, actually there has. I passed through a mini whirlwind when driving through Spain, with tumbleweeds and all. But I'm talking metaphoric tumbleweeds, okay?). 

So yep, we've just returned from our two and a bit weeks in Spain (plus a day in Italy and a day in France). And it was (mostly) awesome. Madrid was especially awesome. As was Segovia. And Corsica too. 

Normally about this time I'd start a series of 'Holiday Slideshow' posts about each place we visited, but that ain't gonna happen. We're only home for a few weeks before the step-sons arrive and we fly to Europe again (yay!). And by 'home' I mean the husband was away for work last night, and has a trip to KL next week, and I'm heading to Hong Kong for a few nights too (to meet up with my friend of twenty plus years! I am so excited about that I really, really wanted to type it all in capitals and add a bunch of exclamation marks, but the aesthete in me won out). And we have two visitors heading to Seoul (yay!). And I need to catch up on all the stuff like paying bills and booking flights and answering emails. Not to mention there's only two days left in the month and I haven't done August's Collecting Colour post yet (it will happen - it's orange by the way, if you want to put a collection together). Sigh. *puts hand to forehead in a dramatic fashion*

But, I am in the process of sifting through my many, many photos (lots of them of my husband's back as I'm chasing him down some scenic street, camera in hand) to give you the best of the best. Plus some amusing and witty anecdotes.* Stay tuned.

ps. The photo at the top is from yesterday when I was on Typhoon Bolaven watch. The clouds were suitably ominous - dark and grey and racing by. They said it was going to be the biggest storm in a decade, that the Han River would flood, that people might die in landslides, but it turned out to be not much (in Seoul anyway, they got hit pretty bad down south). Reminds me a bit of this clip from The Simpsons.

*Wit of anecdotes not guaranteed

Hello!

[Super cute card by staceywinters]

Hello!  How are you?  How has your week been?  I do hope it has been happy and good, or maybe a bit interesting, at least?

It's been a bit quiet here of late.  We spent last weekend in hot and steamy Singapore with the step-sons, which was fabulous (more on that soon), and then we took the chance on the way home to spend a few days in Hong Kong.  The husband had to go back to Seoul work mid-week, so I've been here on my own for the last few days.

You see the plan was to blog then...but I kind of got lost in a haze of blue skies and beautiful vistas and bright manicures, and my brain turned to that wonderful holiday kind of mush where you stop thinking quite so much (in the nicest possible way).  So instead of writing posts I've been wandering about Hong Kong harbour and eating too much and admiring clouds and such...

But now I'm in the airport lounge, homeward bound.  I'm looking forward to hopefully continuing the holiday vibe over the weekend, but also hopefully mustering the brain power to put together some pretty posts - hurrah!