Kirsty and Matt's Wedding

Following our wonderful trip to Guilin, the following week saw me board yet another Air China flight from Beijing to LHR. I am used to the procedure now and chose my seat well - lots of space and the good fortune to have no one next to me.

At some stage - somewhere over Moscow I should think - I got bored and hungry and headed to the back of the plane where supplies of crackers and fizzy drinks were to be found (no expense spared on Air China - BA give you icecream!). There was a small Chinese boy of about 4 playing on his own with a wind up toy. I plonked myself on the floor beside him and we began to play.

His English was limited but he did understand my instructions. About half an hour later, when he had got bored with me, he went to find his mum and brought her to meet me. We stood chatting and I found out a lot about her - she was from Sechuan Province and had been visiting relatives but lived in England. She told me that she lived in Corsham - what a coincidence, not far from us in Broad Town.

Now, I know only one other person in Corsham and before Dave and I had left for China we had had supper with her. She speaks Cantonese. During supper she told me about a little boy at playgroup with her daughter - a little boy who speaks Cantonese and with whom she had struck up a friendship. It was quite amazing but it was the very same child. Proof if you needed it, that this is a very small world!

I was returning for Kirsty's wedding to Matt. This was a highly planned event which was to take place on 10th May 2008. As I was staying with them I was completely immersed in it all from my arrival to the day they left for their honeymoon. I had the huge honour of spending vast amounts of quality time with the bride to be and we had a wonderful girlie time together. The whole weekend was wonderful. It was lovely to see so many old friends and to make few new ones too. The whole day was fabulous and you will see from the photos that everyone looked fantastic. We partied til late into the night with Granny Liz (83) having more energy than most and she was still on the dance floor at 11.30 pm when I bailed out!

I was lucky enough to get back into our cottage for 24 hours - we do so love it! I also met up with some great friends and had a wonderful evening in an Indian Restuarant.

My flight back to China was not so good - the French Air Traffic Control people decided to have a lightening strike just as our flight reached push back. So we sat on the runway for two and half hours until they decided to go back to work. When we were served drinks I knew it was not good news, when they served dinner we all thought we were there for the night - in fact there was talk of taking us off the plane and putting us in a hotel overnight. That would not have been good for any of us - especially my newly met travelling companion who was scheduled for a connecting flight through Beijing to Sydney! We did take off - and made up a considerable amount of time landing only and hour or so late.

Our next flight back may well be sooner than we thought - watch this space!