I’m a terribly naïve traveller in case you’ve not realised. I was forced to travel as a child because of being the daughter of an RAF Dad but if truth be told I’d rather have had a traditional upbringing, staying in a single location for all of my youth. For whatever reason, my sister loved the experience of going to new schools every few months while I dreaded every new start and every new encounter. Since I’ve had charge of my own destiny, I’ve been a home bird. It really doesn’t ‘rock my boat’, the idea of travelling.

I’ve always felt you can have more fun at home for a fraction of the cost AND you get to have the comforts of home and the animals around you all the time.

While I sit here on the return journey from a fantastic time in the USA, my heart remains firmly at home. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed. I don’t think I’ll even mind when the alarm goes off in the morning and I have to return to work. And I say that having not been able to get access to my work email since late afternoon on Thursday so there will be mountains of ‘stuff’ for me to deal with I’m sure.

This trip has been such an eye-opener though…..my exposure to Americans has really largely been through the TV before yet I can now say I have a large number of friends who are American. The ‘gang of four’ PBASERS in the flesh were completely brilliant, as was talking to Pete – how I wish I’d been there when Angela and Ray had been on the phone too.

There are also a number of folks from the conferences last week that I’d definitely call friends too. That’s pretty cool. The PBASERS were always going to be friends because we’d got a head start by knowing a good deal about each other and shared interests before meeting. To me, the conference was basically a lucky break that meant we could visit NYC and the PBASE crowd. Lara had said ages ago ‘if you’re ever in New York….’ So as soon as I got confirmation of the visit from my company, I got on the pmail and asked for company. What a wonderful thrill to walk up to the door of our hotel on Friday (totally stressed because it was so late and David was waiting at the airport) and hear ‘Linda’ in that Southern Drawl. From that moment until we said goodbye there wasn’t a single ‘difficult moment’ exactly as when we met Ray a few weeks ago. To me, the weekend did so much for friendship and so much for my confidence it was just perfect. I have the ultimate photo of Jill to post – she’s gonna love it!!!

Meeting my work colleagues was different though, I had nothing in common with them except work…..or so I thought. I met a number of keen cooks, a couple of photographers, two other people whose failed ambition was to be a rock star (just like me, shame I can’t hold a single note!!!) and a couple of folks who poured their hearts out to me during the trip. I seem to invite intimacy from people and I’m not entirely sure why – I hope it’s because they feel a discreet, sympathetic soul. Who knows. Anyway, there are now many people in Princeton, Bluebell and New York who I can call friends too and this has been an unexpected upside to the harsh regime of the work schedule. Sunday night was the only good night’s sleep I’ve had in ten days. This morning we were up at 5am, ready to be at JFK at 6am. Groan.

We arrived at the airport to a relatively quiet check-in, nothing like the chaos that had reigned at Heathrow last weekend. A BA ground crew lady was asking who was travelling on electronic tickets (for those that don’t know, business flights these days are usually ticketless – you just show up with your passport and a reference number and that’s it). My company has some very strict policies about business travel (part of the reason why we continue to make good profits for our shareholders) – we have to travel Economy (Coach) unless we are coming to the USA when they relax the rules slightly because of the long journey and let us travel ‘Economy Plus’. The difference is there is a bit more space, one fewer seat in an aisle and slightly more room between rows. On the return trip I’d elected to travel basic economy because then I could sit with David (my colleagues would say ‘bigger fool me’ but there you go – to me the thought of him sitting a few rows behind me for eight hours seemed ridiculous.

This morning, the lady asked for travellers on electronic tickets and we said ‘yes, that’s us’. She took us to an electronic check-in point that for some reason wouldn’t accept my credit card so a bit of fiddling about followed and she gave us our boarding cards. We’d been upgraded, not once (to Economy Plus) but twice, to business….hence a few messages appearing on PBASE galleries at around 7am EST. We were in the Executive lounge where we were able to have a quick surf for free! Maybe it was my reward for saying I’d travel economy to be with David.

Now we sit in seats that face each other (like cots) able to chat and compare notes about the films with ease. The cabin crew don’t know we are on upgrades so are as attentive as if we’d paid the going rate for Business Class seats. We’ve eaten like ….well, not quite royalty, but certainly good food. How cool is all this. What a perfect end to our trip. If we’d planned it this way it couldn’t have been nicer.

All I want is for the next few hours to be over, for us to be opening the door of our home and having Rosie and Archie’s mad welcome. I really can’t wait.

Tomorrow I go back to the grindstone but these four days in between work days have been a complete joy….which will sound odd to anyone spending time with me during the four days given how much of the time I’ve been in tears.

UPDATE: Home now and all is as it should be...Rosie and Archie are jumping around, the rest of the gang are well and it's good to be home.