Yes, the Bakers are back in England and COLD!!!

Here we are arriving at Heathrow Airport a week ago:

Although we are home, it doesn’t quite feel like it yet. We do feel like strangers in this country, even though it’s our own. The biggest shock has been the temperature -around 15 degrees Celcius lower than what we have been used to. In fact, on the first night, Ruth came into our bedroom wearing gloves and a woolly hat and has had a hot water bottle most nights since!!!

The journey home went very smoothly, although at pre check-in the morning of our departure we found our cases were all a couple of kilos overweight so we had to take stuff out or face hefty fines! Thankfully, we’re shipping some stuff back, so what we removed was simply added to the shipping consignment.

On the way out of the airport, we got to wait in the salle d’honneur, the president’s lounge for dignitaries! (top left picture below). This was due to our friend Mathieu Assogba, whose pop video Rob appeared in (see it here). (NB we didn’t ask for this privilege but didn’t feel like turning it down either!) Very nice, though, and air-conditioned. However, once we’d left there, we had to join the queue with everyone else!

The other pictures on this collage are (TR) our plane (well, a similar one anyway – to take a photo of ours we’d have had to miss it!!) Then (BL) Ruth on the plane with her cousin Rachel, who came to visit for our last 2 weeks and was a tremendous help with packing and keeping the kids entertained. Finally (BR) Lois, Mads and Micah on the plane. All three kids had their hair plaited African style before we left, but have taken it out now. Here they are back in our new home in Bedfordshire:

Thanks for reading! Summer party 2nd August if you’re around…