Saturday 9th August......Deal Or No Deal?

Sometimes luck is on your side. On the off chance I called a taxi company specialising in airport transfers last night, whilst holding a bag of frozen green beans to my left thigh, which had come up like a rugby ball. A rugby ball with no leather covering. I didn't hold out much hope of a favourable price, given that Ade and Fran Duke last week had been quoted £50 for transportation from Toddington to just the other side of Dunstable. Needless to say, the Dukemeister refused to accept this price and haggled them down to half of it with the skill of David Dickenson, but from up North.

Imagine then my surprise when I was quoted a mere £54 from our abode, about two miles from Toddington, to Heathrow. This was £11 more expensive than the train but, as it turned out, an hour and twenty minutes faster. Money well spent. And in true, preparing for the US stylie, we even gave our driver a tip! So there we we were with time to burn and taste the new and latest latest vodka concoctions for free, while we bought bog standard at two for a twenty note. However, no amount of quaffing was going to dull the stinging from yesterday's altercation with the Tarmac. And as I was going to find out an eight our journey squeezed into economy class was not going to help either. The whole experience reminded me of last year in the Caribbean when Merlin and I had joyfully snorkelled for an hour with no sun protection or even a t shirt as worn by the locals. The pain of the following couple of nights as I carefully turned over in bed, sticking to the sheets as a fly to its paper, was exactly the same as the pain from the scraped flesh of the pointy bits of my body, which had taken the full force of yesterday's slide.

The flight to Washington with my two U.S. first timers was uneventful, which is always good, and soon over. The next hurdle was getting through immigration and customs. A massively slow process and one that you have to grimace and bear. The officials are a definite victim of what Trish calls the 'uniform syndrome'. That is give someone a uniform and they turn into an officious jobs worth. They take no prisoners here. And truly some people must seriously test their patience. For a start they don't allow any line pushing. All aircraft personnel line up with us the passengers and when one of the crew jumped line he was sent to the back like a naughty schoolboy. Next it was the turn of a stressed looking business man. He too attempted a line hop and was told to get to the back. Foolishly he ignored this and approached the desk again. Looking up from his paperwork the official said 'what part of get to the back didn't you understand'? So scolded he wisely vacated the local space. I imagined this happening in the UK. The queue jumper would have been directly to the official's boss with cries of disrespect and rudeness. No such here.

The next queue was for customs where my travelling companions foolishly followed me into a line which turned out to be for one post, while the other line was served by three.  Too late to change lines our's slowly meandered forward. What was the reason for this? It turned out that we were being served by Mr. Magoo who inspected each and every passport inches from his nose as if each contained a vital clue to some mystery. Eventually we were in a taxi and on our way to Central  Washington.