As usual, not much sleep on the night flight (Hong Kong to Madrid), just because there’s a flat bed doesn’t guarantee sleep. The movies were not much good either so I ended up watching a few episodes of Scandal which I must admit I love.

I am walking around intermittently to exercise my legs and keep my hip from stiffening up. It’s a little awkward to do my stretches but when everyone else is asleep, I am standing in the aisle doing calf raises, knee raises, stretching and doing froggies and glute bridges on the flat bed.

When we arrive in Madrid, I have a 4 hour wait for the next, shortest and final flight. The lounge is not that easy to find but eventually I locate it having walking all around the airport – more exercise which is good for me. When the flight is called, it is leaving from the gate which is the furthest away from the lounge – according to the signposts, its about a 15 minute walk. There are travellators along the way which takes a little out of the walk but all in all, it keeps me moving and is good when you have been sitting for so long on all those planes.

The one hour flight seems really short, no sooner have we taken off than we are landing and it’s off to see if my luggage, which was checked in at Sydney airport all the way through to Valencia, has made it for the whole journey.

I have a very large suitcase which may be an issue heaving of the conveyor belt so I station myself and my trolley next to this rather large middle aged man and his wife just in case I need to ask for help. My small bag comes off first and then I see the suitcase on it’s way towards me. I am very conscious that I should not twist at the hips for another week and so thankfully, the suitcase is on the end that exposes both the top and side handles – it’s not trouble at all to take off the belt and lands straight on my trolley. Quick check of how the hip and knee feel and it’s off through customs.

We have a one hour drive from the airport to Javea and I must admit that once I get there, my hip / leg feels stiff, it has been a case of extremes for the last 24 hours with periods of sitting, slow walking, pulling a small case etc etc and I know that once rested, it will be fine. So, decide to follow with tradition in Spain and take a siesta in the afternoon as I know we are off out to meet a circle of Dave and Fiona’s friends tonite at the local pub quiz. This turns out to be a rowdy raucous affair but very enjoyable and shock, horror, our team comes third. We arrive home at 11 pm and I’m almost dead to the world, off to bed for me and I go out like a light.

Hippy Times 🏋🏻‍♀️

Monday morning – the departure day has arrived. I set my alarm but am still awake at the normal time. Everything is quiet in Lexi’s house so I have to creep around and end up drying my hair in the back room with the doors closed in the hope that I don’t wake anyone as it’s only 4.30 am.

Lexi is up and is coming to the airport with me – as much as I have tried to dissuade her from this, she is insistent. The Uber arrives and off we go. I check in, there’s no queue but I am told my suitcase is overweight!! It has 1.4 kgs too much so Lexi and I scrabble around and remove stuff and then finally we manage to remove a few things to the backpack and it’s acceptable. We have a quick coffee and then it’s time for me to go through departures and into the lounge. Hugs and tears – as we both knew there would be and a final selfie and a wave good-bye.

The flight is pretty good and uneventful. I watch a couple of movies and read my book, a short snooze of about 30 minutes and before you know it, we are landing in Hong Kong. I have a day room booked at a hotel because there is a lay-over of about 8 hours. I check into the hotel, change and head to the gym to get rid of some energy. It’s pretty decent as hotel gyms go and I’m actually there longer than intended.

After freshening up and repacking my cabin baggage, it’s back to the airport. Cathay Pacific lounge has a good selection of food and I’m starving so have some Chinese vegetables and chicken. There’s also a counter where you can order hot food but as I know they will feed us on the plane, I don’t really need too much.

Hippy Times 🏋🏻‍♀️

And so to Saturday morning. We have quite a lot to get through today – we are up early as we need to check-out of this Airbnb which is really a shame because I only have two more nights in Australia and it would have been good to stay but here we are, packing our stuff and packing the car to move back to Lexi’s place for a couple of days. The weather is great – a lovely true Sydney autumn day – a little cooler in the morning but with the sun shining it’s great. My little pocket rocket and training buddy wants to carry everything to the car and my suitcase is almost as big as her. So, car packed it’s off to Lexi’s to unload as we don’t want the stuff to be in the car the whole time while we are at the Fitness Expo then it’s off to the gym.

We didn’t train with Phil on Thursday because I went to the Gold Coast and therefore we have our second session (and possibly my last ever with Phil). We’re a little unsure of what we want to train today so we decide to do a full upper body workout. We are put through our paces today, heavy weight and high reps. There’s pull ups, rows, lat pulldowns, shoulder press, lateral raises, upright row to overhead and then tricep push downs – great workout, feels so good to exhaust my muscles.

We realise we left something at the apartment so we decide to drive back there and pick it up and then refuel with food at the Grumpy Baker.

After breakfast we drive over to the International Convention Centre where the fitness expo is taking place and Kath is competing. She has sent a text this morning saying that her hair and make up is running way behind time and she is completely stressed – she will be ready but it is stressful when you are already stressed about the competition.

We have a quick look around the expo and then take our seats to watch Kath on stage. We can tell she’s not really happy with hair and make up but she comes on to stage with her smile and tan and she looks fabulous. Her number is 88 – that’s a pretty good number and she struts her stuff looking amazing. Kath places 1st in her category Fitness Model 40+ – fantastic work.

We have to drop the car back at 2 pm so we do so and then we get the bus to Bondi junction to sort out the transfer of my phone number to prepaid and get a holder for the SIM card so that it will fit in the old fashioned handset that David bought for my Australian number before we go to Lexi’s place. We are meeting Britt for dinner at Osteria Riva in Bondi Junction tonite so we just chill and watch a movie. Britt will be moving to the UK once her visa comes through so I’ll be seeing her on the other side of the world. Dinner’s fun and we chat about all manner of things – farewell to Britt and we are off home again.

It’s been an active long day so early to bed.

I’m awake at the normal early hour so get up and spend some time doing some admin and reading whilst waiting for Lexi to emerge from the comfort of her bed. A gym session this morning that consists of full lower body workout. Leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises, squats, sissy squats and hack squats. We are now absolutely starving and head off for breakfast.

It’s my last full day in Australia today – so just a few things to do. After a great breakfast of eggs, smoked salmon, mushrooms and protein bread, it’s time to shower and then off to have a pedicure. Lexi stays home and I go to the nail place in Bondi Beach then decide to take a walk along the promenade as it is such a beautiful day. I WhatsApp David sitting on a bench at the beach – it’s so busy and the weather is like a summer’s day.

Returning to Lexi – who’s been trying to take a nap but not having much luck – we have a cup of tea and decide what to do for dinner. If Lexi’s ‘boyfriend’ decides to join us then we’ll go out but if not we decide that chicken, veggies and sweet potato will suit us just fine. We go out to buy the chicken and come across an Italian bakery where we buy two small cannoli for dessert. We’ve been watching the movie ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ because we have already seen Pretty Woman this weekend so thought we would have a Julia Roberts binge and Lexi hasn’t seen this film.

We have to get up early in the morning to get to the airport by 5.30 am so now it’s bed time – my last night in Australia.

Hippy Times 🏋🏻‍♀️