Paris-Singapore-Warrimoo

As I start to write it is about 6:00 pm in Singapore and 12:00 pm in Paris and 9.00 pm in Sydney and we woke up at 7.00 am in Paris - but yesterday - not today, and caught a nice taxi to Charles De Gaulle...

which looks like aliens have landed - which - as far as Parisians are concerned - they have.

We were waiting in the web of movable tapes, with a couple of hundred other unfortunates, for the dubious pleasure of having our passports looked at by a gendarme who couldn't give a merde. A cheerful redhead made the same mistake as several others and charged down the wrong alleyway in the maze. We called her back on course. She raised both arms and pronounced, "What do you expect, we're French, we can't even get people into three lines."

Once we were past the checks we paid off part of the French national debt by buying breakfast. Lyn can't stop talking about paying €9.60 for a croque monsieur.

Singapore airlines were excellent again but 14 hours is a longue duree. I watched: Man of Steel, World War Z, The Lone Ranger and 42. This is the mental equivalent of chewing gum for 10 hours - but my current book is an extremely nuanced reassessment of foreign relations prior to WW1 and I find myself reading the same sentence again and again...

With 90 minutes to go Singapore Airlines were preparing to stuff yet another meal into their stupefied charges when Lyn turned to me and said, "Happy 27th Anniversary". I'm not sure, technically, on the world clock, at what point this day began, or when it will end...

Singapore airport was miraculously efficient again and had McDonalds! The taxi was quick, and at the Goodwood Hotel we upgraded ourselves to a poolside room. We have lived like lotus-eaters for the last few hours. Our only excursion has been to the shops to avoid eating in a restaurant. Even if we were willing to pay $115 a head for dinner and $17.50 for a glass of wine - we'd probably snooze between courses, rather than gaze into each other's eyes.

At one shop Lyn asked the Chinese girl serving us if they sold bottled water. She barked, "what?", except it sounded like, "WHAAA!" Lyn and I looked at each other and struggled to suppress the giggles - she sounded like the love child of the "I wok so harrd" lady at Blaxland shops. We are nearly home.