Astonished

I’m currently on a giant metal dart sailing over the clouds from Miami to New York, where the next instalment of my adventure will take place. American Airlines don’t seem to understand the concept of vegetarianism, so I’m tucking into a tiny bowl of warm nuts and loving every mouthful. The air stewards are a right bunch of surly bastards, which is apparently not unusual for a domestic US flight. As I write, they’ve blocked off an area with a service cart, whilst one of them tucks into a cookie, and the other one uses a pen to remove food from his teeth.

I have to say, the difference in me as a flyer nowadays is marked. I used to get on a plane and literally be in a state of blind panic until I got off again. I would dread trips abroad because I couldn’t imagine anything beyond the flight. A few early disastrous experiences didn’t help; an emergency landing on foam in Canada, and turbulence so bad once that an air hostess injured her head on the roof of the plane. At one point the fear got so great that I stopped going on holiday. Today, after a few jitters on take-off, I’ve been feeling almost calm.

We had a storm in Miami yesterday, and the wind was extremely high, whistling eerie tunes through the skyscrapers. We managed to get a few hours of sunshine, however, and I had a swim in the sea; my first since arriving here. Such clear water, such delicate white sand; such a far cry from the effluent and tampax-laden brown seas off the coast of the UK!

Another interesting UK/US Miami/New York comparison; I couldn’t find anywhere to buy a newspaper yesterday! The drug stores are filled to the brim with trashy magazines and novellas, but newspapers are something of a rarity. I don’t know what this says about Miami culture. Perhaps the residents get their papers delivered and it’s the tourists who aren’t interested in anything other than the shimmer of celebrity lifestyle. Perhaps I was simply looking in all the wrong places.

I’m excited to discover what New York will bring and very much looking forward to meeting up with all my friends there.

Bad news from the UK, however, as I called my Mum to discover a good family friend is very ill with a form of lung cancer. I hope very much she makes a recovery and wish her family the very best in what must be the most horrific time.

March the 3rd 1660, was a Saturday, and Pepys had a sheep’s head for his lunch; a thought which brings a small amount of bile into my mouth! Much of the rest of his day seems to have been spent brown-nosing and forelock-tugging. He was called for by Montagu and spent long periods of time waiting patiently in sub-chambers whilst his patron dined with the great and the good and settled into life at the very top of the social tree. The return of the monarchy was still by no means a foregone conclusion, and rumours were floating around about the possibility of MPs continuing to run the country with Monck, or even Cromwell Junior at the helm. This was bad news for Pepys, who consoled himself, unsurprisingly, with much alcohol. There was also troubling news from Sweden. King Carl X was dead.

NEWSFLASH...
 
I've just arrrived in New York at the Soho House to discover that Nathan has secretly come all the way here to surprise me! What an incredible thing! I am astonished! Matt was in on the whole thing and filmed me as Nathan appeared. He's put the film on You Tube. You can see it here