Went over to Lisa & Jack’s to join in the fuss over Anna’s haircut. We then hopped into a hire car and set off for the burbs – West Chester County, where Jack grew up. Stopped off at a diner on the way for brunch. Mirinda had nachos, I had a bagel with lox and cream cheese. Yummo. The diner had the little individual jukeboxes at each window booth – like in Happy Days. Jack put on Frank Sinatra but it was a bit hard to hear.
The countryside is beautiful and the town we stopped in is everything you’d expect from American New England: big houses, wooden on big plots of land. The centre of the town looked just like Eastwick. Ended up at this massive ‘walking’ place which was covered in trees and Autumn leaves. Also a wigwam and a nature centre. Jack said he came here as a kid.
Jack, Lisa and Anna in the woods
On the way home we stopped off at a cider place for a cider and a doughnut. A lovely spot to sit outside and sip warm, non-alcoholic cinnamon steeped cider – except I had a beer. Unfortunately the place (which is a cider mill) will close down because IBM has bought up most of the land in the town and “squeezed ’em out”, according to Jack.
Back to Lisa and Jack’s for dinner (pork chops on rice) and finally a car to JFK. Airport security not too bad. Not a lot to do at the terminal.
The flight was pretty bad. Couldn’t sleep though I was totally wiped out. Mostly disturbed by the guy in the seats across the aisle, whose headphones were way too loud. Mirinda complained to the (British) flight attendants but apart from briefly mentioning it to the guy, they did very little so we suffered all the way. The guy, I think, slept. And this was just the beginning of our rapid decline back into the world of UK service standards.
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