Goodbye Singapore, Hello Oxford

Was a little nervous embarking on our next leg of the journey with a 13+ hour flight and 6 hour timezone change but must admit it all went very smoothly. We bid our farewells to Singapore and flew out around 1pm. The girls entertained themselves drawing/colouring in, making velvet pictures, playing Uno and of course watching the onboard TV programs (with the Wiggles being the most popular). Ella tried her hand at some of the games with varying success. I was even able to watch the Life of Pi in fits and bursts. By 9.30pm both girls were asleep. We arrived at Heathrow just after 1am (Singapore time) with traditional small wait in a holding pattern to land followed by time spent waiting for a ground crew member to arrive in order to connect the air bridge to the plane. Both girls wheeled their own carry on suitcases to the immigration line before the tiredness set in. The line was several rows deep so it took a little while but eventually we did reach the front of the queue.

When applying for a visa, both Ella and Andy had to provide fingerprints and retina scanning at the British Embassy in Canberra. Katy was too young for fingerprinting and I've got a British Passport so didn't need to. Now Andy has his fingerprints scanned - all matched and ok and then it was Ella's turn - not ok even after 2 attempts! The immigration lady explains not to worry, this often happens with young children as they move during the scanning process and therefore getting a smudged print which doesn't match. So another 15 minutes waiting while the immigration person verifies Ella! Not really sure about the point of having children fingerprinted if it causes so much hassle.

Off we go to grab our bags, out to the Europcar courtesy bus to get the hire car. One brand new VW Golf picked up, with a bit of squishing of backpacks between the girls and off we went to negotiate the motorway! About 40 mins later we arrive at our hotel in High Wycombe.

By this stage it is nearly 10pm UK time (and 4am Singapore time). With the girls having already had 5+ hours of sleep under their belt, Andy and I both thought that we'd be in for a rough night.  We decided to order some food which we ate in our room before crashing out for the night. Katy woke around 3am but promptly fell back to sleep and didn't wake until 7am meanwhile Ella slept straight through! Perhaps we'd avoided the jet lag?? Stay tuned to find out ...