Driving By Instruction

I’ve earned another award. It’s called the Most Abandoned Blog Award and when you get it you have to list all the excuses  reasons why you have been so remiss. In alphabetical order. I’ve lost my dictionary so I’m doing it chronologically. Here follows my ten days in New York taking in my son’s wedding in Connecticut…

Three thousand miles due west, disorientation due to high altitude and several time zones, heat exhaustion due to low altitude and a series of ‘mind the gap’ verbals, group travel disorientation due to complete pack of adult children speaking in tongues, group travel murder plot attempt, abort and fail. Sun, sand and complete sunburn on Atlantic side of Long Island, sitting in a plastic bag for 4 hours waiting for tennis to begin in Flushing Meadow – hold on we are in New York aren’t we? Rained off? Did you say RAINED OFF?

Only people from Northern Ireland would attempt that same plastic bag thing again a second day so yes sitting in plastic bag again for slightly less than 4 hours this time. Did see Serena Williams come out, knock up and then skip off to get dried off and go home presumably. We left about an hour later. The mini individual steam room thing we had going on helped us to develop the skin peeling horror that developed several days later – why, one daughter had to buy a completely new outfit for the wedding to cover her now hilariously patterned (usually white) legs.

Next came an episode from Lost hiring a car in Connecticut – me driving. We were given a GPS and made the first journey from the house where we picked up the car driving by instruction. I was so focussed on driving on the right side of the road and avoiding causing a multi car pile up that I literally followed every instruction without taking in any sense of direction so when we came to make the same return journey later in the dark and where we had a GPS fail (didn’t know there was an antennae that needed to be up – doh!) all I could do was ignore the 4 other voices in the car giving complete opposite directions and keep making right hand turns in an ever decreasing circle until we ended up in someone’s driveway.

Helpful phonecalls from our new extended family only made matters worse as we needed “get on to 35 South” translated to “in 0.2 miles turn left” etc., etc. To this day I have no idea what direction we were either in or should have been going. We arrived about 2 hours late and not sure how we managed even that – the GPS must have got going at some point – can’t remember! Imagine if we had missed the wedding…

But we didn’t. Stress that morning built while trying to work out how to get 9 people to the wedding venue on time and in order of their importance (Best man, mother of the groom, siblings of the groom who were doing a reading, father of the groom etc.) in a 5 seater car with a directionless driver. Again managed it somehow, explanation escapes me, no arrests made. My other stress was due to lack of technical ability and North America’s lack of digital projection equipment. Actually their lack of electric kettles is another intriguing thing about the US but I digress.

Wedding venue found and corresponding bodily parts retrieved we each set off to have a fab day. Much alcohol, food and merry making was had – that Happy hour thing is hilarious at a wedding – and I think I escaped with my reputation intact even though even I took to the dance floor to while away the afternoon…

After the wedding it was back to New York and just time for a little sight see-ing from the Top of the Rock…

Going home of course included 3000 odd miles in an easterly direction, altitude disorientation blah blah, the wittiest pilot I’ve ever experienced – announced just off the Eastern Seaboard that someone had left their teeth in one of the toilets and could they please collect them. I laughed my pants off at this all the way across the Atlantic whereupon he announced just before landing that they still hadn’t been retrieved!! Me thinks it was a little ploy by the pilot to amuse the passengers… Anyho it worked. Just as well – arrived home to find my plumber’s sense of humour not so funny – no toilet in the bathroom. Happy to report it is now installed but that is definitely on this list. What is this list again? Oh yes the reasons why I haven’t been blogging…

Highlights for me? Having a day on the beach on Long Island with all three of my children and my now extended family, getting to the US Open even though I saw no play and seeing my son so happy on his wedding day where my daughters read beautifully two readings I had selected, one of which was a poem I had written. Aw.

Just as a little aside – what is going on with editing posts? I can’t save, preview or it seems publish although if you are reading this it must have published – what is that all about? I think I might have jet lag as I am less able to edit my photos, add captions etc. than when I first started blogging.