We all awoke feeling fairly refreshed at 06:30am for the short drive to Heathrow on 30 June. The journey there was uneventful, though we did briefly lose The Girl in Terminal 3. The Vincent family took action – splitting into teams and tracking her to the check-in desk.

The night before we left, The Girl and I were franticlly moving things from her bag to my bag then from my bag to hand luggage; desperately trying to stay below the 23kg limit. Both of our bags ended up weighing 24kg each, but we managed to wing it thanks to a lovely lady called Lawrence. Yes. I said lady called Lawrence.

After the bags were taken care of we all went to have breakfast at one of those fake English pubs. The entire time I sat there worrying about the impending goodbye to Mother. Both of my siblings had spent weeks winding me up about how emotional she was going to be. But in the end she was fine. Mildly teary, but I’m not going to begrudge her a few tears for her favourite child. I wouldn’t have been embarrassed if there had been a scene, but I think it would have been a lot harder for me to say goodbye.

Apart from the annoying child sat two rows behind us, I found the 25 hour flight to be fairly pleasant. The kid had discovered how to make a shrill hooting noise about an hour into the flight. The novelty never wore off. The legroom, or lack thereof, wasn’t too much of a problem until the guy in front pushed his seat into my kneecaps. None of this bothered The Girl as she was catching flies for most of the flight.

After sitting down, awake, for about 32 hours we arrived in Sydney. I was expecting a conversation with Australian Customs about my visa and to provide evidence on how I was going to support myself. But I was just unenthusiastically stamped and waved through.

The Girl and I were going to be met by one family member. It ended up being five and a family friend. But a combination of my exhaustion and their warm welcome meant that I felt in no way overwhelmed. We were driven to the hotel which The Girl’s mother had booked for us. It was slap bang in the middle of Circular Quay. When I first heard about the hotel room being booked for I us I felt a little guilty about being looked after, but as soon as I walked into that room my guilt flew straight out of the window with the glorious view of the Harbour Bridge. After a bath and bowl of potato wedges The Girl and I both slept soundly until 05:30am.