Starting again

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A few years later, a few years older, quite a few pounds heavier and no pension plan in place, what to do? Work harder, save more and die earlier or put all one's faith in the Euromillions lottery to provide and go off travelling again. Dear reader, you can guess which option I chose. The economy is doomed anyway, so I salve my conscience with the thought that in my dotage you will all be poor with me.
This trip is a mini trip. A year of lugging round 25kg of luggage no longer appeals. Three months of throwing everything into the boot of a car seemed much more to my liking. Besides, as Ursula pointed out, at our age half your luggage is various vitamins and potions claiming to aid us in sailing with tranquility through 'that' stage of life, and the other half is eyeware - glasses for reading, glasses for driving, glasses for adjusting your mirror image so that the wrinkles and pounds fade, lenses, lotions, etc. Any remaining space of luggage was to be devoted to the middle-aged women's essential travel companion, gin.
And so my luggage and I made our way to Heathrow. Accustomed as I am to running late for everything, I like to be on time for flights, but for once it was not to be. I had run round the house for 2 hours before leaving to make sure everything was clean and tidy, last minute packing (3 kg of luggage below the allowance, I had to fill it, it was simply rude not to). I had a list, I had checked everything off, trying to quell the nagging voice in the back of my head that I had forgotten something. I have a small bag where I had kept papers, maps, passport, insurance details, and I hurriedly checked that everything was in it before realising how late it was and driving like a lunatic to the airport, only to be caught in horrendous traffic. Who could have predicted that there would be heavy traffic around Heathrow airport during a weekday morning rush-hour?
On arrival at the car rental drop off I was almost hysterical. Tomasz at Hertz was clearly very well trained in the art of calming women of a certain age and a certain temperament and took the car keys, stowed the luggage and got me to the check in desk with minutes to spare (apologies to all my single women friends and the ones now tiring of paunchy husbands, I was far too hysterical to look to see if he was (a) wearing a wedding ring; and (b) in possession of a penchant for the older, chubbier lady).
Despite my misgivings and ranting letters of Christmas, I flew with Virgin again. They fly directly to San Francisco, the in-flight entertainment is good and although they proved to be crap in a crisis, I was hoping that we would either have no crisis or I would this time have the sense to start a revolution, take over the world and at least demand my luggage before leaving the airport. My faith was justified. On arriving in the terminal I appealed for help to the nearest Virgin ground staff who whisked me to the front of the queue. What I actually did was grab someone's arm and shriek, from which they managed to pick out the words 'late' and 'flight', to their credit.
The flight passed quickly thanks to the combined contribution of a few gins and an entertaining conversation with a fellow passenger. Gin, as always, brings clarity and wisdom, and by the third gin the sane, calm person who resides somewhere in the back of my mind fought its way to the front and pointed out the lack of wisdom in changing handbags at the last minute, and reminded me that I had taken my driving licence out of the admin bag when I picked up the hire car. I shut the voice up, reminding it that I had checked, and ordered another round of gin and tonics. I had to order, Tom, my new best friend, had upset the flight attendant by questioning whether she was really out of beer and red wine. I was in the rare position of being the passenger the stewardesses liked, and was making the most of it.
Eventually I returned to my seat, got out my hand luggage and checked the admin bag. I got out the small plastic square which I had, in my hurried check, assumed was my driving licence. It was actually the plastic cover for a digital camera memory card. Useful as these may be when travelling, the memory card doesn't hold a photo of my licence and was going to be little use in collecting booked hire cars, let alone convincing Highway Patrol that, despite my crazy driving, I was fit to drive a car.
What to do? On landing, I texted Mark to find out who has keys to Milly Hilly. Daphne has keys. Daphne is Mark's mother and an angel of assistance. Daphne is in Morocco. Mark has Skype. Daphne has Skype. Mark contacts Daphne. Daphne returns from Morocco (as planned, not just to help wayward me). Daphne retrieves the licence. Daphne posts the licence to Ursula. Ursula will meet Viv in Las Vegas. Viv will have the licence back. Everything ends well. It is going to be made into a Ladybird reader. Ursula is not blessed of a fickle mind when it comes to handbags, I am saved, although she may pretend not to have the licence until our two weeks together are up, she has seen my driving.
Whilst my moods ranged from hysteria, despair and euphoria over my driving licence, I occupied my time well. I opened a US bank account. Chase were happy to give me a bank account even though I wasn't a resident, but at almost the end of the proceedings they said they needed something official which had both my name on and a US address. It was tempting to reach out and smack Alberto repeatedly round the back of the head whilst reminding him that the words 'I am not a resident, I am travelling' would suggest I didn't have anything of that nature. However I refrained, and we went to chat to Bank of America.
Bank of America are all geared up to taking money from the likes of me. They have a special form for it (and no it doesn't have 'handle with care' at the bottom, how dare you have such a thought). It was brilliantly easy, aided by the very entertaining Jeremy. Jeremy explained that this was an online account - i.e. Jeremy doesn't want to see me again. No matter, I have a US bank account. I also have a US mobile phone, having read my December and January phone bills before I left - 1.10 a minute sterling, and 40p for texts. Now all those witty little texts I dashed off don't seem so witty, they seem incredibly stupid. I am now possessed of a little chunk of Samsung plastic with which AT&T will charge me $0.10c a minute so all is right with my world.
Just as Gabrielle predicted, I'm ready to start again.

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