I have mixed feelings about the coming fortnight. This time tomorrow, Jess and I will be on Emirates 413, climbing out of Sydney on our way back to England. This will be the first time we have ever made this trip together, and the first time I have travelled with anyone between the UK and Australia. I've flown from London to Sydney via Hong Kong and Singapore, and London to Melbourne via Singapore but this time we are flying from Sydney into Manchester (via Dubai), an airport that aside from Exeter (where I worked for 5 years cumulatively) and maybe now Sydney I have spent more time at than any other. Yet this is the first time I will fly into Manchester, and on an Emirates A380. This should be exciting to an Avgeek like me, but in truth there is apprehension because of what this trip is actually for.
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My Grandparents and my Dad at
Bovey Tracey CC in 2008 |
I won't go into detail, but my Grandparents aren't well. It's an undeniable fact of life that it is not everlasting, and I told my Grandparents 3 years ago when I left the UK that I would see them again. I'm only about 48 hours away at the time of writing from keeping that promise. There is a lot to look forward to when it comes to seeing them and a lot to be excited about coming back to the UK with my wife for the first time, for my paternal Grandparents to see Jess again but this time as a Carter.
England in February is not particularly glorious. The single figure temperatures, the frosty mornings, the rain and the minimal hours of daylight don't portray the country in the beauty we all know it possesses. I'd always envisaged not having to ever deal with another English winter's day, and given the mercury has been upwards of 30C for the last week or so here in Sydney it doesn't matter how much we try to prepare for it the cold will still come as a shock. Yet I still can't wait to get there... Not so much the location, but the people. It's a big old world we live in that at times seems tiny. It's times like these where you come to realise just how far away you are from your family and friends, and the joy you will get from seeing them again if only for the briefest of moments.
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| Chris, me, Liam at Heathrow |
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| Leaving Bovey in 2013 |
It's safe to say that personally I haven't looked back since leaving Bovey Tracey on 17th March 2013. The progress I've made since then in building my life in Australia with Jess has surprised me, and on that date with the snow-capped hills of the Westcountry and Southern England passing us by, if we had sat down in the lounge at Heathrow and listed the things I/we have done in the last 3 years there isn't a snowflake's hope in Hell I would have believed it. I remember that day so well, leaving Devon and posing for a family photograph in front of my home of 17 years. Friends coming over to the house for breakfast and bidding me farewell. Chris Towell and Liam Berry, two of my best friends from school, making the journey to Heathrow to see me off. It truly moves me to know I have friends like that, and friends like Matt Pascoe, who have made the effort to come over to visit on multiple occasions (most notably our wedding) and is coming again later this year.
I am English. I am a "Pom" as our convict cousins so eloquently put it. But I am now a Permanent Resident of Australia. All of my sporting loyalties lie with England, yet I still call Australia "Home". This will be the first time I have come "home" to England as a visitor, not a resident. I can't begin to understand how strange that will feel. Or will it feel weird at all?! Will my already dodgy half-Devonian/half-Australian accent change to try and avoid comment? Somehow I don't think I'll be able to contain the "G'day mate, how ya goin'?!", although I equally don't think I'd get away with walking into the Dolphin Hotel in Bovey next Friday with "Ello, bey! 'Ow be knackin'?!" Not only that, but I'll be in England with a WIFE!!!!! Christ, I'll be 30 in two months time! I'll be intrigued to see how different the reality of Weaverham, Bovey Tracey and the people who live there is from the snapshot memory I have from three years ago. God knows I have changed, I can't wait to see how people have changed, yet I'm apprehensive about it too.
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Grandad and I on the flight deck
of Concorde G-BOAC at
Manchester Airport in 2009 |
It's a strange sensation to be excited and apprehensive at the same time. It's going to be a very very busy time starting now. So it's off to bed now, wake up and get to the Reptile Park in the morning (I can't help myself, even on the day we fly across the world!), see my friends and animals, head home halfway through the day and then finish packing and off to SYD, DXB and MAN. Emirates, you might sponsor Arsenal but I'm trusting you will make the journey enjoyable. And however long the flight might be, it doesn't matter a jot when it comes to the rewards you get at the other end, with two beautiful countries, two beautiful families, and the chance to see the ones who mean the most to you.
Not long now, England... We're coming for you.
