Home Sweet (small) Home

Well we finally made it back home after our last flight from LA to Heathrow with everything on time. We seemed to be at the airport for about 4 hours too long; I don’t like them getting you there so early for international flights. You seem to be hanging around endlessly, hour after hour so that you can sit on a plane waiting endlessly for hour after hour. Maybe the journey home is always much worse than the original journey to go on holiday. Having hardly slept all the way back we were shattered when we arrived at Heathrow at around 10am as to us it was 4am, probably your lowest point of the day.

LAX airport has most of the shops and restaurants at the front end and only a snack bar at extortionate prices once you have gone through security so it’s best to prolong security as long as you can. We arrived before check in had started so had to queue for about 30 minutes; you can see Claire in the queue with her green coat on if you look carefully. I sneaked off to have a look what was around. About half of the food hall area is under renovation so our choice was limited to Mc Donald’s, Mexican, Sushi, Chinese buffet that looked like it had been there all night without a sign of staff and a proper Diner. We chose Mc Donald’s for some bizarre reason, maybe we weren’t hungry or just wanted one last all American meal. We only had a chicken burger without fries or drink but it was cheap at about $3. They seem to charge a lot for the fries and drink, more than the main burger I think. Anyway, it was just as awful as the normal burgers, if not worse so we won’t be eating there again for several years I hope.

No sooner on the plane and in the air when the hostesses served drinks and food anyway. Have you noticed lately that they will only normally serve you one drink at a time each when they are free? By the time they have got half way down the isle you are ready for another one and can’t attract anyone’s attention until after drinks and the food has been served. Anyway, BA gave everyone two drinks to start with which seems to make much more since. It still wasn’t enough for us but much better than if we had only had one each. I managed to watch “Gran Torino” with Clint Eastwood on this journey; I have wanted to see it for ages. He might be getting old but he hasn’t lost it, good old Clint. The only trouble when watching films on planes is the sound system, I can hardly hear anything they say as its poor quality and maybe my ears have deteriated a little over the years. It was all that loud music as a teenager that did it, and in those days there was no upper decibel limit. I remember after watching Black Sabbath my ears were ringing for two days. They used to have more than one group on at a venue in those days which they should bring back really; we haven’t a lack of groups around. On that occasion, we had Quintessence, Curved Air (Sonia Christina and Darryl Way) and then Black Sabbath with Ozzy. The air was so thick with Joss sticks you could hardly breathe. They also used to have at least two films on at the cinema and maybe news and a cartoon thrown in; you seemed to get more for your sixpence in those days.

We arrived at Heathrow as scheduled and were picked up by our taxi service perfectly. He had Claire’s name on a card but had already sent a text in case we missed it. It is an excellent service and so much more convenient than getting the coach which stops at all the airports in the country on your way back. From Milton Keynes to Heathrow they charge £60 which I think is a real bargain. They charge £65 for a pickup as they have to pay for parking and waiting, and again, I wouldn’t want to do it for that price. The company is at www. airportconnectmk.co.uk . I see that they have been adding more tax to petrol prices while we have been away; no change there then, I suppose its easy money and it has to come from somewhere.

We arrived home and were almost surprised to see the cars still sitting there. The first room I went in was the kitchen and couldn’t believe how small it looked. I carried the bags upstairs and our bedroom was even smaller; the bed didn’t even look big enough for one. I think spending so much time around Australia, where the houses are officially, the biggest in the world and spending time around the USA in hotels and motels has effected our expectations. We decided on an easy day for our first day home but Claire still managed to unpack and wash, file all the post except for the stuff that needed some action. I wonder what she will be doing when not on an easy day.

Our body clocks were low all day and we both nodded off here and there but by the time the evening set in where we should have been going to bed, we woke up and wanted food. We didn’t go to bed until about 2am and still couldn’t sleep for a couple of hours. Anyway, we snatched a few hours and were up by 8.30am to take Claire’s car into the garage for her MOT. A quick trip around Tosco’s to get more supplies to return to find that Claire’s car would cost more than its worth to get through the MOT. Even if we spent money on it this time, it would need even more next year and their advice was to get the £2000 government scrap for it and buy a new car.

Still not quite with it today I’m afraid so will sign off now and have a go to sum up our holiday another day when we are back to normal. Anyway, it’s nice to be home, I think.