Flying about 14,000km takes a long time. You get past the first leg of a round-the-world trip and you say, “That’s easy. Are we there yet?” And of course, you’re not. And you wait to get on the next leg. And you wait. And they change the departure gate on you. And you wait some more.

You get on the plane, and you wait yet more. Finally, you’re in the air. And you watch as your ever helpful in-seat HUD tells you you have 12 hours estimated until destination…

Knowing full well that I don’t generally volunteer to sit up and sleep, I preempted my potential insomnia in Adelaide and got myself some antihistamine thing which makes you sleepy. This means that I slept on my London leg for about five or six hours. This is a Good Thing. I awoke with a nasty dry throat – a combination, no doubt, of an antihistamine side effect and constant air conditioning in our flying tube – but soothed this similarly preempted condition with a water bottle I readied earlier.

iPod nano played again, and I read all the way through an issue of Future Music magazine (which, ironically enough, had been printed in the UK and imported to Adelaide, where I had bought it). Breakfast was fried rice and chicken, and was a good sight better than the “omelette” Singapore Airlines tried to get me to believe was not actually overpreserved tofu on my Germany trip. Six hours on a plane takes an aeon to while away, but we arrived eventually after a wonderful night overflight of western Europe.

If Malaysia was slightly humid and slightly warm, London is utterly freezing cold. Seriously. We got off the plane and it was -3 degrees Celcius on the ground. Yeah, that’s why I carried my jacket on me the whole way.

Arriving at 5am has its downsides. I had indeed slept earlier, so the “day” had already half elapsed in my mind. Customs and baggage collection were easy and our relatives were punctual (and not half bleary) in picking us up, rather than enjoying their Sunday morning sleep in. And once at our new home away from home, we had a whole day in front of us, including second breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and coffee. Having had a decent amount of sleep, I fared better than some of the others in our family, who crash landed into their pillows only to awake at 3am the next day.

Other first impressions? Well, it’s cold. And the houses are… compact. Cosy? Small! We’ve got ten people in a very small space. At least the place is well heated, because it’s cold here. All the buildings and infrastructure seem older too.

Did I mention the cold?