Nate was an absolute superstar on the flight. I shouldn’t have worried. He slept most of the way, and when he wasn’t sleeping he was happily flirting with all the lovely cabin crew. 

We arrived in to sunny Adelaide the next day, and were met by a poorly Rich (Influenza A, not COVID-19 worth noting). Even though we weren’t visiting Australia for happy reasons this time, we had the most wonderful stay. Being with family and going through stories and memories featuring the one and only Isabella Norton was therapeutic and uplifting. Issy’s funeral was incredibly special and something I won’t ever forget. Nate was a tonic, a real pick-me-up for everybody, and I know that Issy would have been thrilled to have known that he was there entertaining the masses.

Over the past 9 months, there have been certain things I have found particularly helpful in keeping my mind and body functioning at top level. Simple, yet effective, holistic healing techniques and practices that, I feel, have made a huge difference to how I have coped with such uncertainty. The lifestyle in Australia encompasses a lot of these approaches to well-being, and I loved spending time in this environment. These may seem obvious, but included some of the following – eating really healthy nutritious foods, lots of beach walking, sea swimming, reading, learning and exploring, spending quality time with family, chatting, laughing, doing nothing at times. And of course touring the wineries is always good for your health! The sun was shining, and I spent a lot of time outdoors. These basic measures are easily accessed by the majority of us, and it was a good reminder of things to practise in everyday life.

Meanwhile, coronavirus was slowly but surely taking over the world. Bit by bit we could see things escalating and becoming more frantic in the UK. Rich and I both work for WNO and overnight the organisation pretty much shut up shop, we were all instructed to work from home and the entirety of our spring season was cancelled. As a patient currently undergoing immunotherapy treatment I automatically found myself in the ‘extremely vulnerable’ category. This raised big questions about travelling home on a long haul flight. Dr F was, of course, as helpful and reassuring as ever. He told me that he was very relaxed about me flying, and in a worst case scenario where flights were cancelled he wouldn’t be worried about postponing my treatment (due to the half life of the drugs, and also because of my previous scan). After reading that, I almost decided to stay in Australia for another month. 

Now, looking back, I’m very glad we got on our flight this evening. Whilst queueing for check in at the airport, we were surrounded by people who had paid thousands and thousands of pounds in order to get a seat on this exact flight. The route between Adelaide and Cardiff stops after tomorrow, and people are desperate to get home. It has been the weirdest journey to date so far, and I know life is probably going to get a whole lot weirder as soon as we land back in the UK.