This morning I left London and if all goes well I won’t be back until September. After seeing Reg off to work (and just about managing to keep a stiff upper lip) I picked all my stuff up off his living room floor and chucked it back into my bag. The tube ride from Wimbledon to Heathrow was uneventful and I gave myself a gold star for saving £25 by not getting a cab.
After checking in (no queue for once) I met up with my friends Jim and Sue, who are coming to Florida with me for a week for their honeymoon. Before you start thinking that I might be a bit of a gooseberry I should point out that they’ve been together for donkey’s years and got hitched five years ago, but never got around to going away until now. They’ve never been to America before and Sue’s never flown, so needless to say it’s excitement all round. They were so keen that they arrived at Heathrow around 8.30 for a flight that leaves at 13.50!
The nice lady in the BA business class lounge let them both in with me as it was their honeymoon (I’m only supposed to take one guest in) so we immediately headed for the free bar, despite it not yet being 11. After several drinks and lots of nibbles and a stern telling off for Jim for wandering around filming it all we headed for the gate. I love getting on a plane and being told to go upstairs – it still sounds all wrong. Even wronger as my seat faced backwards, as all the window seats in business class do on BA. It’s an odd arrangement as the person next to you is facing you so you end up desparately trying to avoid eye contact, but luckily there’s a privacy screen which you can put up between you after take-off to avoid any further embarrassment.
The flight was fine with plenty of good wine and perfectly edible food, and lots of channels to flick through on the telly before deciding there was nothing worth watching. After lunch I asked the stewardess if they had any of their posh chocs left so I could take some to Jim and Sue, and when I said it was their honeymoon she insisted on accompanying me with glasses of champagne for them, which was a nice touch. Later I tried sleeping for a while but as usual I was just about nodding off when they announced the landing. It was all a bit premature though as we ended up circling over the Bahamas for an hour due to bad weather in Miami. The final approach was pretty dramatic as we descended through one of the most violent thunderstorms I’ve ever flown in, with huge bolts of lightning flashing through the darkness of the clouds. It was the bumpiest I’ve ever felt in a 747 so must have been pretty gusty. Once down we sat on the tarmac for another 30 minutes as the terminal had been evacuated due to the storm so we finally arrived at the gate 90 minutes late.
We got through immigration and customs pretty quickly and were soon in a cab, winging our way towards the lights of Miami, but it was hard to make out much in the torrential rain. We checked into the Starlite Hotel on Ocean Drive in South Beach and scampered through the rain into the restaurant next door for a quick cocktail or three. I love Ocean Drive but it’s not at it’s best in the rain, and after a long day and plenty of drink we all retired to our rooms well before midnight, drifting off to the sounds of Salsa and Latin house music pumping out from the next door bar and just about audible over the roar of the air-conditioning.