G'day Friends, after a short break the blog is back.

As you will notice I've moved a long way since my last blog. Air travel is a wonderful thing when it all goes well, I landed safely at Heathrow on Wednesday morning, feeling even more relieved than usual after watching the news of another flight going missing before I had boarded in Singapore.

I had a small delay at Heathrow when the passport check lady wanted to know if my wife had given me permission to go away without her - apparently lone male travellers without fixed plans are viewed suspiciously here. Although once she had let me in I grabbed my case, headed for the declaration of good counter and found it abandoned! I tried to call someone on the phone left for the purpose and found no-one answered there either. I then approached a security person who told me that no, the tent that I was carrying and that was such a danger to Australia and New Zealand, posed no threat to UK biosecurity and they didn't want to see it. They really didn't seem to care if we had anything to declare or not - strange (but good) after Australian customs.

I was met at the bus stop by my new friend and host Alex, who kindly picked me up in the car and took me home. It was great to be welcomed into the family and not have top do the lone hotel guest thing. After I had relaxed for a while Alex who is also keen on motorcycles, took me out to meet the local dealers and look at a few bikes.

The weather is warm and sunny here at the moment and the grass is really green. Looks like spring time to me - not summer - certainly doesn't look like a bushfire is likely anyway.

This morning we travelled to the Brighton region through the 'South Downs' to look at a bike. I didn't really take to the bike, but the counrtyside was lovely. I had told Kylie I was going to do a 'sheep tour' of the regions from where some of theBritish breeds of sheep originated and it seemed fitting to start with the Southdowns as I remember the Old Man's Southdown stud sheep really well.

I must apologise for the generic photo again - I am once more away from the card reader. At least this time I have been pretty close to the scene. We were a few miles west of where the photo was taken this morning and there were less and smaller buildings.

Well that's all for today, I'll write again soon