Last week in London

Manic week with emotions running high. J hands down is the most impressive person I know and am lucky to have her. She has orchestrated the entire move. Emigrating etc yet again and packing the house was a Herculean effort. And dealing with the full suite of emotions of all our 4 boys was testing to say the least coupled with getting the house ready to rent, Lucas doing his final SATs exams not to mention preparing for Jack’s 13th birthday. It was a helluva week.

Despite all that I managed to run to keep my sanity:

- Sunday 13th May - jogged 10k still jet lagged
- Monday Hilly Long solo 33k in 4.26s
- Tuesday Jack’s birthday and in the city all day for meetings but jogged early morning 9k
- Wednesday jogged 10k
- Thursday early for a final 15k with Messi + afternoon 21k jog on the grass in the Langley grounds. PM out for beers with the running crew in Beckenham
- Friday early jog 10k - last day of school for boys and moved into Aunty Mias. PM out with the entire family at the Chandos in Honor Oak. Starting to creek
- Saturday final Park Run with all my crew: Rory, Foxy, the Selmans and Messi. Out again with my SE London crew in Peckham after coffee with Messi. London in all its glory today with stunning weather (has been all week) with the Royal wedding and the FA Cup final. I could not care less about either.
- Sunday 12k running off my third straight hangover. At Mum and Dads for their open garden in the afternoon. (135k for the week but all garbage ks)

Very sad to leave.  Europe is the best place in the world to live. I will miss the walking, cycling and surfing trips - will miss it dearly. Messi particularly has become a really good friend and will miss him a lot.

Tomorrow we say our final farewells to my parents before heading to Thailand for 2 weeks with our 4 months worth of gear until the shipment container arrives in September. This unfortunately means no bikes for me.

Sydney

I’ve lost track of time. Spent Tuesday 1 May with J trying to get all our Australian passports sorted at the London consulate needing a last minute trip to see Dors at Canary Wharf given they would not accept our original ‘bank manager’ guarantor. It was farcical but we got there in the end and despite the stress it was nice hang out time with J. The move is beginning to get real.

In the morning, I did a steady 15ish ks with Messi (4.17s) before dropping Rydie at school. 

Late afternoon I made the shlep across London to Heathrow for my flight to Sydney - I’ve missed flights to NY in the past stuck in traffic and so at that time of day train is the only way. 

A decent flight with Qantas on a new A380 flying into Sydney Thursday early morning, missing the entire Wednesday. It’s great flying into Sydney at 5am as you miss all the traffic and the airport is mostly clear which meant that I got to the Manly Sebel in time to watch the sunrise over the Pacific. Soon after Al met me for a short jog and coffee on the beach in balmy 26dc autumn temps.

The next 8 days are a bit of a blur but broadly went as follows:

Friday 5th May - solo 10k early morning on the beachfront followed by a busy day of meetings and a late afternoon dinner at Chin Chin in Surrey Hills. 

Saturday 6th - 30k including Curl Curl Park Run plus coffee with Ben and ‘Rebel with a cause’ and swim in the ocean. Saturday night beers with Al and Rich at Manly Pines and Chatthai.

Sunday 7th - run over to Dee Why across the Freshie rocks with Q with Grace joining for brekkie on the beach after. Ran again late afternoon up to North Head with a post cool down in the still warm water at South Steyne - it feels like summer still - bonkers.  Christ, I am beginning to understand what it’s like to not have a family. I’ve never had so much down time to the point that I was compelled to buy a book, Tim Winton’s ‘Breath’. 22ish ks for the day.

Monday - busy day in the city with early morning jogs with Ben, Erica and Justin. 15ish ks.

Tuesday - errands followed by meting Timmy for HuRTs which was 4 by 10 minutes. Neither of us were feeling it with the temperatures again in the high 20s.

Wednesday - early morning jogs with Ben and Darren. 14ks.

Thursday - totally haphazard. Ran early morning 9k and another short jog early afternoon with stuff unexpectedly freeing up. A dinner late evening at Bea Restaurant in Bangarroo and into bed late.

Friday - attempted a run but with an 8am start looming at Sydney’s Langham Hotel and struggling to get out of bed I literally ran 1k north and the 1k back to the hotel. A long day ensued jumping in a cab early evening to get my favourite Sydney-London Friday night ‘Emirates’ flight back to London. Sydney Dubai is 14.5 hours and broke my record of watching 5 movies in one flight:

- Hostiles - absolutely brilliant. If you love westerns you will love this classic and one of the best movies I’ve seen for some time. Christian Bale is very good.
- The Post - also very good with Streep and Hanks on top form.
- Amost friends
- Proud Mary
- All the money in the world
- Tbe Florida Peoject

Sleep deprived, tired coupled with a crap diet and alcohol all week has resulted in me feeling like crap. All the travel this year is catching up with me but there is no let up with flying out of London for good in another weeks time. It’s only going to get worse from hereon-in as will need to be in London and NY in July, Sep and November.