The drive back to Atlanta was easy enough without any of the horrendous hold ups that had been predicted by the lady at reception. I am glad we ignored her advice to leave in the early hours of the morning. However, we did still leave much earlier than we needed have done.
In a way though that was just as well, as we had difficulty finding the car rental return. We got all the way to outside of the International Departure terminal before finding a directional sign. We followed these diligently for some 20 minutes before we eventually got to the return depot, so it was just as well we had time to kill. Inevitably being that distance away from the world’s busiest airport, we had to catch a shuttle bus back to the terminal.
Even then we were 45 minutes too early for the Virgin check in desks to open. We found seats and ignored the people already queuing as we correctly guessed that there would be a separate queue for those in Premium Economy.
Once checked in we went to Security which had an enormous queue which we had to wait in as they didn’t have a separate queue for those with TSA pre check that comes with our Global Entry status. I huffed and puffed about it but there was nothing I could do about it.
Eventually we were through and headed to the Amex Centurion Lounge which had a waiting list to get in. It took longer though to fill in the online forms to join the list than it did for us to be called through.
This was a huge lounge but done well especially by USA standards. The hot chicken was good once some of the ‘gunk’ it was smothered with was removed. I went up to get some ‘bubbles’ for us both. Firstly, I had to provide ID to show I was over 21 and then they wouldn’t allow me to take one for Karen. In the end they poured one for her but had to take it to her so they could check her ID as well. Bizarre.
The flight home was fine when we eventually took off. There was a ‘technical’ issue that the ground staff had to deal with that delayed us by an hour. Bad enough anytime but worse when you are faced with an overnight flight and just want to get home.
The captain made up some time overnight and were very pleased to eventually see Sunny to start the drive home. It was strange not only doing so in Karen’s car but to be greeted with the clothes from the wedding at The Tower that seemed already to have been a lifetime ago.
Back home we were welcomed with the sight of even worse parched lawns than when we had left.
And so, we were soon back into the swing of homelife. It was great as there were so many lovely summer things to do. There were some amateur theatrical productions we attended which were all good although the pick of which was Les Mis at the Theatre Royal.
It was lovely being able to have various friends and family round and being able to sit out in the garden with them late into the evening on numerous occasions and to be do the same round theirs.
I had a quick golf overnight break away in South Ockenden again. Last time we went the second day was curtailed due to snow, this time the heat was the issue. Still, we had a lot of fun and in-between some golf was played. I also must record that I just achieved my best score over 9 holes (45) anywhere but even more impressively I did it at Royal Norwich. Shame I cannot do that consistently.
We had our annual Bowls and Lunch Day at Gorleston which was lovely as usual.
This past weekend we went to see Ed Sheeran at Portaloo Road; a venue I was not happy attending unless it is to see the local team losing to the Canaries. Defiantly I wore a Yellow T Shirt, and I may have surreptitiously placed 8 stickers relating to NCFC in and around the stadium.
The concert was very good but not in our opinion as good as the previous times we have seen him. It may have been because the crowd was smaller (30000 as opposed to 80000) or the crowd was more diverse (lots of quite young children there – many of whom I wanted to give the Childline number to as their parents were making them wear Tractor boys shirts) or more likely that he is coming to the end of a 4 year tour and some of the songs were a bit self-indulgent in our opinion. Nevertheless, he is still very impressive and sure does make a lot of noise for one person on his own.
His main support act of James Blunt was equally as good and provided probably my highlight of the night when he performed ‘Cos I luv you’ originally a hit for Slade.
Karen as usual has worked a few days. This is despite suffering an increase in pain this time down her right leg. She convinced herself that it meant more back surgery or a new hip. She has now seen various people about this and had several scans. The results so far seem to indicate normal wear and tear combined possibly with arthritis, but we have not seen the Consultant yet face to face to confirm this. We are hoping the pain can be eased with a possible combination of weight loss, exercise and injections.
And so, onto this trip – our now annual trip ‘up north’. We are heading back to the same B&B in Thirsk as last year. It will be the first long trip in the new car and a welcome break after being at home for almost a month. Typically the weather forecast for the North is predicting rain but we are still looking forward to it.
