I'm in the departure lounge as I type this. once more I was subjected to higher than normal security searches, I guess they don't like men who are travelling on their own. I suppose that it doesn't help that, under a certain light, I look a little 'swarthy'.

I have small children trunning around my ankles, and to be honest, they are driving me mad - I just hope that none of them are sitting too close to me on the plane.

10 hours on a plane, here is hoping that...

(a) I have an aisle seat.
(b) There are no children near me.
(c) That I'll be able to slepp (being awake for 26 hours so far would make this one likely).
(d) That my connection in Houston goes smoothly.

and

(e) That the plane doesn't crash flaming into the sea.

I say that (e) is the one I'm hoping for the most...

Later today I fly out to Seattle for a couple of days.

I get the first train from Barking (at 5:27, and given that I slept through 3 alarms yesterday, I won’t be sleeping tonight) to Victoria where I get the Gatwick Express to the airport.  At 09:30 I fly out to Houston, landing 10 hours later at 13:30 local time.  One hour later I catch a connecting flight to Seattle lasting four and a half hours, landing at Seattle airport at 17:08 local time.

All this depends on the plane not crashing into the Atlantic (not that I’m a nervous flyer, but I suspect that there will be some calming alcohol therapy beforehand).

I leave Seattle on the 5th of May at 11:40 local time, landing back at Gatwick on the 6th of May at 9:55.

I get to miss the election, which is a happy side effect of this trip.  So who knows what the state of the country will be when I return…

During the trip I shall be in the tender care of Jeannie Cool from IRC, and I’ll be meeting up with some different folks, and at least one ex-pat.

I shall have my mobile phone with me (0790 325 7650), and will hopefully be checking my email every so often (even if I have to become Starbucks best customer), so if you are in Seattle and are at a loose end, feel free to get in contact with me, so I can buy you a drink.

I asked for places to go  and things to do – and I’ll be trying to fit in as many of them as I can.

So for the next few days you will have to put up with me talking about museums, galleries, theatres and (more likely) the floor of many, many Seattle bars.

This, of course, is assuming those wacky Americans let me into the country in the first place.