Escaping

I haven't been abroad on holiday since 1990, when I came back from nine months in Australia. The number of holidays I've had since then which don't involve staying at my parents' house can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and most of them coincided with one disaster or another (or several). The last holiday I attempted to plan, which would have occurred in July this year, ended after a blazing row with the person who would have been my travelling companion, at which point I realised that I had no money to go away with anyway.

I don't have a good relationship with holidays, but tomorrow, that changes.

Tomorrow evening I'm off to Knaphill to meet up with a friend, and then on Sunday four of us are flying from Heathrow to New York to go and see Eddie Izzard. We shall be flying back overnight Wednesday, getting into Heathrow on Thursday at Some God Foresaken Hour Of The Morning. (Yes, it's early enough to deserve capitals. Ok, so it's only 7.10am, but that's still early!) I am even looking forward to horrendous jet lag, because that will mean that I've been somewhere.

Part of me is very, very excited about this. I have my passport, my travel insurance and a bag of stinky dollars. (Why do new dollars smell so awful?)

Another part of me is slightly disbelieving. My best laid plans for holidays have gang aft a-gley. Well, dunno about 'aft', more like 'always'. That part of me doesn't really think that it's going to happen, so it refuses to get excited at all.

I think it'll sink in when I get to Heathrow tomorrow and start wandering round the familiar ranks of shops. I used to work for BAA so I know Heathrow fairly well. I've lurked there many a lunchtime soaking up the air of excitement, but this time it won't be other people's excitement that will be creating that air of adventure, it will be mine. It'll be even better when we're airside, in that strange nomansland between Britain and the rest of the world.

It is going to be a fun time – a swanky hotel in NY, the shopping, the gig, the having to crick one's neck just to catch a glimpse of the scrap of blue (hopefully!) between the skyscrapers.

I'm very lucky in all this – the flights are free as I'm travelling with three employees of Virgin Atlantic, my friend's paying for my hotel (I'll pay him back when I get a job), and my parents have given me some spending money. All I have to do is turn up and enjoy, and that is something I fully intend to do.

So, I may or may not get a quick blog in tomorrow before I leave, but not sure if I will be able to when I'm in the States. I will try to, just for the sake of being able to say where I am whilst I'm blogging. But expect a ludicrous number of pictures when I get back.