Shoehorned into economy class seats on an Ethiopian Airlines “Dreamliner” on our way back from Heathrow to Addis I discovered that you should only put one, not two, flimsy plastic cups into the cup holder on the back of the seat in front. Chris was sleeping peacefully with an empty cup in front of her and trying not to wake her I popped a fresh plastic cup of water into the empty one ready for when she awoke.

This should win me Brownie points I thought. However unbeknown to me this is the point at which the physics dictate that the cup tilts forward and spills the contents – on this occasion down Chris’s leg and onto her foot. She was characteristically terribly good-natured about being baptised awake at 4 o’clock in the morning. Maybe she thought it was me getting revenge for the time when, at the beginning of a fortunately short flight, she was trying to put the lid on a cardboard cup of tea and spilt the lot down my crotch. Anyway, she needed to wake up soon as we were barely a couple of hours out of Addis Ababa airport.

My anxiety that the contents of my backpack might be x-rayed in customs was rising. I had no idea how they would react to a backpack full of a quadcopter and all the associated electronics – something that had amused the x-ray machine guy at Heathrow. I needn’t have worried, as yet again we managed to wangle our way out of the airport with around 100 kg of luggage completely un-x-rayed. Haile was waiting for us, and we negotiated our way through what has to be the most ridiculous car park traffic flow system ever invented – it’s simply not possible to think of a way to make it worse. Welcome back to Addis.

Extricating ourselves from the chaos we emerged on to the ring road roundabout near the airport which was looking unusually resplendent, covered in beautiful flowers. “That’s lovely!” I exclaimed to Haile. “Obama” he remarked.  Enough said.

The best welcome back we could ever have imagined happened when we arrived at Bingham to find all our stuff installed in our beautiful brand-new flat on the third floor of the new Bingham staff housing block. Chris has written a bit about it. Thank you Seble, Cathy, Mark, Liz, Krisha, Marcey and Dave; not to mention the small army of dedicated Ethiopian staff and workers who brought order out of chaos while we were away. A typical bit of Ethiopian culture happened as we pulled up outside with our five cases and two back-packs – all sorts of people appeared, apparently out of nowhere, to carry it all up the 36 stairs so we wouldn’t have to.

On Monday morning Haile took me to SIM HQ to resume work at the clinic, but actually getting into the building proved a challenge. When you’ve been away for six weeks everyone wants to greet you. Numerous people gravitated to my taxi. We shook hands, bumped shoulders, hugged, kissed, asked how we were, asked about our families, and we praised God together. It’s good to be back.

The last six weeks have been a  fantastic time of holiday, meeting family and friends, cuddling grandchildren, and (for me) some education in tropical medicine. Time in St Albans, Chelmsford, Norfolk, the Lake District and Pembrokeshire whistled past but apart from mum breaking her left humerus (preventing her from joining us in Pembrokeshire) all went according to plan. Silverstone was the icing on the cake. Writing all about it would probably be interesting only for us – so I’ve just assembled a gallery of photos which you really must look at, as I promise you they are different from any album of holiday photos you will have seen before. As soon as I have had the time I will post a quite eye-popping video. Watch this space! (In case you mised the link above, to see the photos click here.)