And so it ends.

I’ve often wondered what I would choose for my last meal if I knew I was dying later that day, either by order of the state, (Socrates was un-ambitious sticking to a drink) or by more natural means. It felt like that as we hit Washington, the last day of our tour. In this case it was a bit of a set menu, but I dutifully revisited every monument, garden and statue, and remembered that this had been my first experience of America only a year before.

I hate anti-climaxes, the neither-here-nor-there interludes between major events. If I could have done a ‘cut and paste’ job I’d have zipped back to the inevitable in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately there was another night to endure in New York.

What a strange thing to say. But it wasn’t much fun, packing, looking round Ron’s apartment for one final time, saying goodbye to Bob and Tom and everyone else who’d made me so welcome. I met up with Roland at a similar loose-end, and together we crawled the bars of Greenwich village with Carol Bezvidenhoot. I said goodbye to her with a chaste kiss and walked from the Village to Jackson Heights. New York at night is always an interesting experience.

America was a great adventure, but there was a bigger one to come.



One Adventure ends, another begins. I hope this has proved interesting to my beautiful daughter