Is that a light at the end of the tunnel?

Well, We're sitting in our apartment again this morning reflecting on our time in New York. We've seen and done lots but in reality we'd planned to squeeze as much as we could into the 'planned' part of our trip. The last 10 days or so of the 'enforced' stay have not seen us racing around as much as we did at first.

We're eternally grateful to Dannymatt for taking over 'pupwatch' once Paul and Annie had to depart back to Brackley and hope that all of the people involved in caring for Lily & Rose will still speak to us after our repatriation on Tuesday morning!

The blog has been a fun way for us to keep everyone interested up to date with happenings 'Stateside' and for us to know how L&R are doing. SKYPE has been a good find for us and it has allowed us to have a daily video call with Richard & Sarah over in Preston. We even had a video call with my mum yesterday. She seemed delighted to see us as much as we were delighted to see her.

The blog posting system must be playing up again today. I wrote a reply to Dannymatt earlier but that seems to have been lost in hyperspace somewhere.

So what are the highs and lows of our time here?

The Highs

The whole of the first week!

• The shows - Had amazing seats. Enjoyed the experience but have to say the West End were more polished. It may be that the Broadway theatres tailor their production to suit US audiences as both suffered a little with 'razzle-dazzle' staging techniques.
• The whole experience of The Knicks final home game of the season. It is certainly bizarre! Sue loved the live organ player and the chanting - 'Defence! Defence! Defence!' To be honest the Knicks could'nt defend to save their lives and I to this day don't know how they turned around a 12 point deficit going into the final quarter to win the game!
• Central Park softball; especially the 50-70yr old guys who were letting rip with a special ball that flies a good distance. One of them came and chatted with us for a while to tell us they played for an hour or two every day in fine weather. He was in his early 70's, didn't have an ounce of fat on him, could hit a ball for over 200 yds and was still working as a real estate business owner. Told me he learned 30 years ago that he didn't need to go into the office in order to manage his business! Smart guy!
• Statue of Liberty
• Top of the Rock
• Ellis Island
• Times Square
• Maceys
• Walking Brooklyn Bridge
• Breakfasts
• Chef Yu, Becco, Il Campenello, Shake Shack
• Central Park Zoo
• Our hotel - Affinia Manhattan

The Lows

• British Airways!
• Being in limbo for days and hanging on telephone lines that that often remained unanswered
• Getting to the departure gate last Friday (16th) on standby - only for the plane to be stood down!

Not many lows then!

It's been raining since the early hours of the morning but is starting to clear up now. it was so bad earlier that we couldn't see the top of the Empire state from our balcony!

We're heading over to the local cinema later this afternoon to watch Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Jim has seen it before, Sue isn't sure IF she wants to see it EVEN THOUGH her beloved Johnny Depp stars as the Mad Hatter! Sue's just shouted out that ESB is emerging from the clouds again!

After that we're off to Chef Yu again! We've had 2 final night meals at BECCO that have ended up NOT being the last night - so don't want to tempt fate again cos we really are getting stir crazy! Don't worry, after our last meal we'll be ordering MUCH less food this time round! Sue wanted to make sure we got there in time for the whole of Happy 2 Hours to enjoy as many cocktails as she can swill down!

We'll need to cull our book stock and make sure we take most down to our new best friend barman down in Niles! He sounded genuinely enthusiastic when we asked if he'd like us to leave him some!

Hopefully a good night sleep - NO COUGHING SUE OK? Packing and a final day mooching before we set off to the airport - Newark departure this time. The Earliest JFK flight was even later in the week!

BFN
Charles
xxx