The way home.

I struggled to leave the apartment on my last Tuesday and when I finally managed it I wished that I hadn't. It was raining and I got soaked walking to the library. However the exercise did me good and I am glad that I went. Christophe and I had got take out from a local Caribbean restaurant for dinner, we had curried goat. It was good but the meat still had the bones in and I hate picking out bones from anything I eat. It's the main reason that I don't usually eat wings, too much work for too little reward. Meghan and I went for a pedicure the following day and then she got a call saying that she was needed to work, so we would get to have my last evening in NYC together. We made plans to drink Margaritas together and were running a couple of errands before settling down to some serious drinking when she got another phone call. Not only did they want her to work but they wanted her to start earlier than originally scheduled so off she had to go. I spent a quiet evening in getting my stuff together. Despite not doing much with my extra time in the city I am glad that I would actually have travelled for a complete year. I have had other people ask me before why I wasn't planning to do the whole year , I didn't have an answer. The reason for the original March 20th flight was so that I could be in NYC for St Patricks day and have time after the festival to recover before getting on an airplane back home. April 1st arrived, the three of us had a relaxed morning together and then Meghan said goodbye and went to work. Christophe helped me to the subway station and went off to work while I went in the opposite direction to the airport. I was able to do the airport trip in about an hour and it only cost me $2.25, bargain! I got checked in, my new smaller suitcase weighing as much s my old,larger one ever had. So despite the smaller size I wasn't saving on the weight! My only remaining challenge was to get out of the country in such a way as to be allowed back within the next ten years. I have to say that going through security was anti climatic, the actual immigration departure check had been done when I had checked in and I hadn't realised. I was free to leave and more importantly free to return whenever I wanted to with my shiny new passport.

The Virgin staff started to board the flight an hour before push back, something I am not keen on, I don't want to have to sit on a plane any longer than I have to. I got on at the last moment and found my seat, I was very happy to discover that I had a row of four seats to myself and plenty of space in the overhead lockers. Great. My happiness was shattered when a guy moved seats and decided that he had to sit in the seat directly in front of me and put his seat straight back, despite the whole row in front of me being empty. I gave him a filthy look and moved into the middle of the row to watch my movies and drink my G & T's with plenty of space. I blubbed my way through "The Blind Side" and then watched "2012". I can't resist disaster movies, I love them. The flight was very smooth and went really quickly but then it's only a seven hour flight normally and we had a tail wind with us which made it even quicker. There wasn't even a delay when we got to Heathrow, I was obviously destined to come home on this day. I finished my book on the coach back to Coventry, completing my 52 books in one year. I wished the coach trip away, I was counting the minutes until I would see Darren again. It was so close and yet so far, the trip seemed interminable and to take longer than the flight. Finally it was over and I was home, well as close to a home as I have now.