I feel as if I haven't blogged in ages, and it's mainly because life has been very lifey. There are have been moments when I had ideas for posts, but then thesis or visitors would sweep me away and the moment passed. But now, I have a moment's pause before things start to get really busy again, and I thought I'd try to do a couple of catch-up posts, mainly in order to close a few tabs.

My mum is currently about 16 hours into her 24-hour flight back to Australia. She visits me in Europe for about a month every year. This year, her visit coincided with the celebrations in Germany for my partner's mother's 60th birthday, so during that weekend, Mum went hiking with friends in England. I flew in to Germany for an (almost) literal flying visit, four days there and then back to Cambridge at midnight. The celebrations were in an old hotel in Schonach (in the south of Germany), and I met lots of new people - mainly friends of the family - and tried to speak my rather limited German. One afternoon we went for a trip to the nearby medieval town of Rothenburg. It reminded me of a smaller version of Heidelberg: cobblestone streets, pretty buildings, souvenir shops, masses of tourists. For some reason, you are guaranteed to find three things in every German tourist town: a million pubs serving variations on the same food, shops selling wooden ornaments, beer glasses and faux-medieval gear, and a million ice-cream cafes. It's a thing. Rothenburg had all such places. On my last half-day in Germany, Matthias and I went up to Bremen (from where my flight would leave) and explored the town. Its old centre is very beautiful, and there are some cool areas with little winding cobblestone lanes and quirky cafes.

After I got back from Germany, my mum stayed with me in Cambridge for a week. We developed a good routine: after buying coffee from the only decent cafe in town, she would head off to the municipal library and read, while I would go home and edit my thesis. She came back home for lunch, after which we would go hiking for the afternoon. Then we would have dinner, and possibly another short walk.

After this week in Cambridge, we both went to London for several days. We have family friends there. Mum usually stays with them for part of any trip she makes to the UK. Last week, they were on holiday in France, but wanted someone to stay in their house and keep a vague eye on their two adult children. Since we wanted to be in London, that suited us fine.

One thing I should explain about Mum and me - and my sister Mim, too - is that we are unapologetic food snobs. The first question we ask when it is suggested we go anywhere is 'Will we be able to get good coffee there?' The second is 'What will we do for food?' We never go on holiday without researching places to eat. Scenery, museums, art galleries and hotels: all are secondary concerns. And our favourite thing to do in big cities is walk for miles, and then eat and hang around in cafes.

This London trip was no different. We ate breakfast every morning at Princi, but moved to another cafe on Berwick St for coffee because the stuff at Princi was sub-par. We ate dinner in Wahaca, and even managed to structure our two longer walks (from Tower Bridge to the Thames Barrier, and along the entire length of Regent's Canal) so that we would be able to eat decent food. I know that all sounds ridiculous and over the top, but it's just the way we are.

Foodwise, the best discovery this trip has been Ottolenghi. I've been a bit of a fangirl of his for a year or so now (late, as ever, to the bandwagon), but had never eaten in any of the cafes or restaurants. But we found one cafe in Notting Hill, and ate lunch there - amazing hummus with za'atar, beetroot and peach salad, savoury danish with capsicum, cheese and olives - before I went back to Cambridge and Mum flew back to Australia. I also brought a box of mixed salads back home to share with Matthias for dinner, and Mum brought another box on the plane with her.

This is not the most bizarre thing we have brought on a plane. On one, notorious return flight from New York to Sydney, my mother, sister and I bought a whole roast chicken, salad and bread from Dean and Deluca and ate it on the plane. This was in 1999, a simpler time, and we were allowed to bring Swiss Army knives in our hand luggage, which we used to cut up the chicken, as well as some apples we had bought.

My family will do anything to avoid eating plane food.

I'm missing Mum already. I always think I've come to terms with living so far from Australia, but whenever family visits, I'm reminded of the distance, and of the things I've given up in order to be here. I have lots of people with whom I can talk about everything, but there's no one with whom I can talk in quite the same way as my mother.