Last days in the UK

On Wednesday evening we headed to London for the last of our days in the UK. On Wednesday evening, at the NZ House penthouse in Haymarket, and surrounded by stunning views of London, I gave my "Prosperous 21st century New Zealand" presentation to about 80 mostly Kiwi expatriates who paid 25 pounds per head to attend the KEA sponsored event. Best of all, Catherine (is she not gorgeous?) paid to hear her Dad and so did a whole group of her friends, from left with Miang and me, Richard and Sasha Holden, Gretchen Miller, Jane Ellison MP, John Samiotis and George Klavdianos. Also present but not pictured were Pete Olsen, Mark Warner and Sasha Khrapitchev.

While in London Miang and I stayed at the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace, Catherine being in the midst of shifting to her new flat in Clerkenwell. The RS occupies beautiful premises, part of which was the pre-war German Embassy. On Thursday I had lunch with the President, Paul Nurse, the Executive Secretary Julie Maxton, and Council members Peter Williams, John Pethica, Tony Cheetham and Peter Knight. It was the first time I have eaten at a table with four knights of the realm present. The food tasted no better for it though the conversation was jolly. The photo shows me standing next to the portrait of Edmund Halley.

The London stay was a chance to meet up with family and friends. Wendy King, daughter of my cousins Diane and Maurice Flavell, is a pediatric oncology nurse manager at Whittington Hospital near Archway, where we met up for a coffee in the local Costa's. Family members will instantly recognise her. She is so like her mother.

And then, today, Friday, we met Antoine Lutti, my ex PhD student, near Russell Square where he works as an MRI physicist at University College London Institute for Neurology, and afterwards with Elaine Ferguson, Miang's friend from Dunedin, who is a research scientist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Now we are at Heathrow, waiting to board our flight home, arriving Sunday midday, in time to watch the All Blacks-Australia semifinal on Sunday evening. It's been a wonderful period in my life, being in the UK, China, France and Germany (and in Miang's case Africa) with family, with so many friends, and with so many adventures. I'm ready to go home, and my last word on the matter is given in this tiny video clip from the NZ House event.