Long Time No See!!

I’ve been a very naughty blogger and have completely neglected the blogging world for the last month or so. Sorry. *hangs head in shame*

In my defence, we moved apartments (see last fascinating post about wall scrubbing) and a few days later left to go back home for a few weeks.

Now I know some people are very good when it comes to keeping social media up to date with what’s going on in their life, as and when it’s happening. Instant updates, after all, are the whole point of social media. And there were a few times whilst we were away when I thought: “Oh, I could tweet/blog about that”.

The thing is, I find that reporting on the lovely things in your life as they are happening often means you miss out on a little bit of the experience. This happens a lot in Hong Kong: people are simply glued to their phones. It’s very common to see couples in a romantic, candlelit restaurant not talking, but typing away on their phones, their faces lit up by that horrid blue glow from the screen. I always think it’s a bit sad, I’ve never quite understood the obsession with being in constant communication ALL THE TIME.

Which is why when we went back to the UK, and then to Brittany (which was my first time back to France in 4 years!), I thought “sod it, the internet can wait, I’m going to have a fab time and not worry about keeping myself plugged in”. And so I did. In hindsight the polite thing would have been to leave a note on the blog, you know like a “gone to lunch” note on the door of a shop. We’ll chalk that one up to experience.

How was the trip back, you ask? Phenomenal. It was the perfect mix of eating, drinking, hanging out with the family, more eating, more drinking, with the odd bout of hammock reading thrown in (possibly the best kind of reading there is. The English language is poorer for the fact that it does not have a word for this delicious way to spend an afternoon).

Unfortunately, something went wrong while doing laundry out there, and all my shorts and jeans got shrunk at the waist. Never one to let myself get down, I drowned my sorrows in baguette and cheese, washed down of course with some nice red wine. Funnily enough I had the same washing machine issue upon getting home. Ah well.

I do have some photos – not of the eating and drinking, you’ll be glad to know – of the birds we spotted on this trip. For the first time we saw puffins – they’re so cute with their sad clown faces!

We popped by the aptly named ‘Ile aux Oiseaux’ (Bird Island).

And we had a hilarious encounter with an angry mother seagull. My father got too close trying to take photos of her little one (can you blame him, look at how fluffy and cute baby seagulls are!)

The mother gull took flight and swooped down at his head to attack him – not once but twice! It was like something from a cartoon. If this was a pixar animation, she would definitely be a bad guy, look at her – she’s proper evil looking.

But now, we are finally back. The cats seemed really happy to see us, which was a nice little welcome home. I’m just tidying things a bit on the blog, brushing away the cobwebs and dust and then I’ll be swinging by all your blogs to see what you’ve been up to this last month. Looking forward to catching up with you all!