And breathe…

…As we settled into our Quantas seats, the children each having their own choice of films on the in flight entertainment system. It felt like the for last couple of weeks we’d been sprinting to get everything done before the taxi came to collect us from Nick & Nancy’s. It went right down to the wire, but now whatever hadn’t been done wasn’t going to get done, so there was no point worrying about it. We could relax…

(By the way, this is the first blog I’ve written. I’ll be interested see how many read it – I’m expecting readership to fall off a cliff after the first one or two, especially given that Fi is doing her own version, which will no doubt be much more readable! She didn’t think we could do it jointly – she’s probably right – and we couldn’t agree on things like frequency of posting, so decided to do our own versions. Of course I’ve also got competition from  Jemima and Gabriel, who will also be sharing their thoughts. Still, this is as much for me as for others, so if only a couple of you read it, so be it!)

After a 4 hour stop over in Dubai we eventually arrived in Addis. We were all pretty exhausted, but while we were trying to found out whether anyone was there to meet us & get directions to our guest house, Gabriel was smart enough to do something about it. When I turned around I saw him slumped over our baggage trolley, fast asleep!

We eventually found Tsebay, our host, who stayed with us in St Margaret’s 18 months ago when little Nahom was over for his kidney operation.  On the day we arrived at their guest house, the Ethio Comfort (with internet – an unexpected bonus!), it was one of Nahom’s cousins 1st birthday, which is a big deal in Ethiopia. It was hard to work out who was who with all the extended family there, but it was a great event with food, birthday cake, coffee ceremony, the works. A lovely welcome to Addis 🙂