Breakfast in Hollis, New Hampshire

The journey to the airport was stress free. I decided that as I was going to cart this bag across the world I should start as I meant to go on and walk to the station. My darling husband was a bit incredulous about the idea, surely you are going to get a taxi! Anyway I bumped in my neighbour as I left the house and she very kindly took me to the station. Thanks Denise it was much appreciated and it gave us a few minutes for our goodbyes too. The train and two tubes were all fine we had seats all the way and minimised on the walking, but I did find it quite difficult to manage my bag, so I am going to have to work on that. It didn't help that I was also carrying a wedding present with me, more about that later, and the walk from the tune to Terminal 3 was long and my bags felt quite heavy by the time I got into the terminal. then the moment of truth, I had weighed my bag and then added what I thought were a couple of very light items, and I weighed in at 24.7 kilos. Oh dear. After all that effort I had failed at the first hurdle. However Virgin Atlantic didn't bat an eyelid and off it went without a hitch. Of course my biggest fear is that it won't arrive at the other end, which happened to me in Feb this year when I had a quick visit to St Louis traveling from the same airport and terminal. Trust Diane that's what you have to do I kept telling myself. My Itinerary doesn't really allow for lost luggage !

So a quick peck from the old man and I was off on my adventure solo, first port of call lunch, very nice fish pie. And some ice cream to follow and sorry to admit this Shaun but I did have a couple of glasses of wine. Then a very easy flight to Boston, I had three seats to myself so even managed a bit of a sleep. Entry into the US was virtually painless apart from standing in the wrong queue for 20 minutes. And then I found my bag, hurrah, and went out into arrivals to be greeted by my lovely cousin Elisabet. We share the same name as we were both named after our Amma, that's grandmother is Icelandic. My father decided that I would be known by my second name for some obscure reason, something to do with the Queen being Elizabeth, and so no one would say my name properly. Anyway I digress. Elisabet whisked me away to her lovely home in Hollis New Hampshire to be greeted by her husband Gary, her son Robert and his soon to be wife Aubrey and also Robert's father, stepmother and two brothers. We had a wonderful family dinner and eventually I got to bed at about 1 am. Needless to say I was awake at 5:30 and could not get back to sleep.

So by 7:30 I was in the kitchen having breakfast looking out at the woodland that the house is nestled in. Very peaceful and beautiful.

Then the madness begins

What followed that peaceful breakfast was really a day of madness. There was so much to do to prepare for the journey to Vermont, shopping packing three cars driving to Vermont. I should explain that the reason this trip happened in the first place was because Elisabet invited me to Robert and Aubrey's wedding. It kind of grew from there. We talked about going to a health farm in Utah for a week and decided we would do that, and then we thought we may as well stay in Vegas for a few days as we are passing through. Then I resigned and the world of opportunity opened its doors. More of that later.

So having loaded the cars we began the journey to Vermont where the wedding is taking place, the drive was absolutely beautiful. The trees are just starting to turn, so I can only imagine what it will be like in a few more weeks. We are staying in a beautiful house in the woods with a wraparound veranda, there are hammocks in the grounds and you can see for miles. The views are just amazing.