The trip home.

Lifting off into the air on the 28th August at Dubai was the most happiest moment at that point in life. I was finally going home. 

The mountains of east UAE.

When I landed at Changi airport, it felt like stepping out of a dream. Like the last 3 months did not happen. Or it was like coming out of a long deep sleep/coma and then realising that someone is missing. Like a long anticipated feeling of meeting a specific loved one was just not happening. To was great to be back home but at the same time I felt heavy of heart.

Not one to dwell on my moodiness, upon reaching home I got changed and headed off straight to the coffeshop to have chilli crab, fried baby squid and God knows what else and Tiger beer with cousin Colin. The chilli crab was crap but heck, it didn't matter. It was my first night home and I had more than a week ahead of me.

Unfortunately, having gotten used to the peace and quiet of my Dubai apartment, I had great difficulty in getting to bed what with the flat being on the 3rd floor and next to the main road.

One of the other great joys of being home was catching up with family and friends. I would like to think that in my short time at home I had carried out everything I had set out to do. I gave away some of my photography stuff to Colin, met with Elaine and gave her my guitar which was only collecting dust at home. And I finally got a proper Medium Format camera, the Mamiya 645 Pro with an 80mm f2.8 lens.

And I also managed to bring ALL my remaining cameras back with me to Dubai so here they are for review, from left to right: Rolleimagic II TLR, Mamiya 645 Pro, D80 with 18-200 VR (new lens!) Leica M6, Nikon FE2 and lastly the Canon Powershot A620 which was used to take the shot.

My scuba gear, underwater photography set up and some framed artwork should also be arriving here soon, thanks to John Alexander of our warehouse. 

The thing about this trip I've learned that it isn't exactly isn't leave if you're going home. You have such a hectic time running around meeting as much people as you can, running errands, shopping for what you need that you hardly have time to actually slow down and take things easy. 

My only regret was not taking the effort to take more photographs while at home. I have no excuse. I was just plain lazy!