I got up early enough to finish my packing and then sit around and read the paper. The Telegraph is a right-wing paper that made my blood boil. Arrrrrgh! I composed an angry letter that I never wound up sending, where once again pensioners equate gay rights and age of consent laws with paedophila. Why not dust off the old chestnut that Jews are making matzoh from christian blood?
B and B took me to the Garden of the Rose, in Chiswell Green in Watford. It has quite a variety of roses. Big, small, many colors; some roses were bichromatic. B and I commented on many of them, and she said, "You like the small ones, don't you?" I guess I was commenting on them because I'd never seen small roses before.
We sat down for a beverage before going to the airport bus. While I was in the loo, B&B wondered whether to two women dressed almost identically near us were twins or mother-daughter. I thought the latter. They had very gaudy hair and nails, a la Lawn Guylanders. Greedy fat finches landed right on the tables where we sat, hoping for some vital pastry crumbs. The gift shop was perfect. It provided me with a good gift for my catsitter, U--a statuette of a black cat. U lost her own cat, Tara, last year.
B and B waited with me for the 724 Green Bus to Heathrow. It showed up on schedule and off I was. The driver was clearly inexperienced. Every curve and red light he ran made me wonder if I'd survive the trip to the airport. I almost lost the cheese and pickle sandwich B made me when he lurched the bus into a residential area during a construction-mandated diversion.
But I made it to Heathrow. I ran into WH Smith for a bottle of water, and I got postcards of Prince William (one for me, one for J at work; she has a weakness for "boys" that I don't). I also got my Dad a postcard of the Concorde, not knowing that at about that time one had just crashed outside Paris.
There was a really long queue at the check-in counter at Virgin. A pushy American couple were in my airspace the entire time. I really wanted to ask them if they were considering dating me, since they seemed to be halfway into my hindquarters, but I held my tongue. Five days in Britain and I get a lot more polite. I did what all good travellers do at Heathrow--I bought chocolate for the folks back home. The flight was uneventful, and because Virgin provides personalized in-seat video monitors, it went quickly.
Meanwhile, New York provided the usual bad welcome home, in the form of a very long bus ride, three times longer than it should have been. The driver didn't discover the on switch for the air conditioning until halfway through the trip. But all told I got home okay. U was with the cats, Nero and Diana, when I got home. They missed me. They acted like velcro once we were alone.
Next Entry... Dad
Previous Entry... Bloody Prince Phillip!