After a day of packing and ticking things off the to-do list, we collected Martha and William from school. It was a nice enough day to spend some time in Bruntwood Park. Of course, that meant their snack for the day was ice cream. Martha spent most of her time spinning in the small thimble in the sandpit, allegedly to prevent the smaller people from filling it with sand.
Meanwhile, William ran about all over the place, climbing both the climbing frame and a couple of trees. Then, being a slightly smaller child, he put some sand in the newly vacated thimble
After dropping the children off at their home, the three of us returned to ours. Some more packing before a very short night’s sleep.
At 3am, we arose, bleary-eyed, excited and trepidatious. I took Liesel and Leslie to the airport for their very early flight to Frankfurt. They had a great time in Michelstadt and Heidelberg with our friends Fe and Gabi, whom we’d seen last year. I can’t describe in detail what they all got up to, but here are some photos, thanks, Liesel. Naturally, I went back to bed for a few more hours.
I think it’s fair to say they had a better time for a couple of days than I did! I was busy at home, packing, eating, washing up, taking out the rubbish, booking a taxi, putting an address label on my suitcase, but most interestingly, replacing the battery in my Kindle. A straightforward job that I’ve done before, but this time, I managed to damage the screen in the process, grrr. I copied all the photos from my phone to the PC. I drove over to see Jenny, briefly, to drop the keys off and offload some vegetables that will just rot over the next few weeks. You’ve probably guessed, I’m going away too, and I had a lot of last-minute jobs. I missed out on the regular walks this week, but I did go for a quick stroll via the barbershop.
My flight wasn’t quite as early as Liesel’s, and I was more worried than usual about flying into the USA, given the stories we’ve heard about visitors and students and others being detained or even deported by ICE. Other than the tag-printing machine not working, I sailed through the processes at Manchester Airport, no problem.
My flight to Atlanta was great, in the sense that I managed to watch two whole films, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, in French, but with English subtitles, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Director’s Cut), which was probably the version I saw many years ago, then known as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Special Edition)!
The moment of truth. Deep breaths. Try not to look guilty. But the Customs and Immigration Officer I met today in Atlanta was the most friendly, welcoming, smiley one of the many who have ‘greeted’ me over the years.
I caught the Plane Train to another Terminal, rode the escalator up and met Liesel. She and her Mom had arrived from Frankfurt just a couple of hours earlier.
I had a plate of nachos before we walked to our gate for the next flight, to Albuquerque. We’re staying with Liesel’s aunt (Leslie’s sister) Buzz, not forgetting Neil and Gabe.
They all met us at Albuquerque Airport… oops, I mean, Albuquerque International Sunport, and drove us back to their house. It had been 27° in Atlanta, but here, it was a miserable 7°. What a contrast.
We’d all been up for over 20 hours, so it wasn’t a hard decision to make: yep, let’s go to bed straightaway.
Mick and Liesel's Antics 