Parting

Today dear chums is the day I leave for the UK. Am I packed? Nope. However I have my camera and my list, oh and my gold tooth.

Just before going out to dinner last night with friends Steve and Christine, crown fell off. Ok, crown fell off while I was eating a turtle. The British NHS will only spring for gold crowns unless they are at the front of the mouth and I always put this down to porcelain being dearer, but turns out that may not be the case. As it happens, Steve has also been having problems with a crown, porcelain one, but his nearer the back. Steve is an actor and has opted for porcelain because of being photographed etc. His keeps breaking though, so maybe it's the use that the back teeth get that calls for metal.

Camera - well I am notoriously bad at taking photos, but I have promised that I will try harder this year. The thing that I foresee is this, apart from my new grandson and my growing granddaughter Holly, nothing will very much strike me as photoworthy in Britain because I've seen it all before. But I will try.

My list, what is it I need to bring back? Too late for mincemeat now, but I have some things. For example, I need a calendar. I have a very nice calendar sent to me from the States and that is up in the study, but I need a long one with writing space on for every day and preferably pictures of Arctic animals for the kitchen. My working calendar, and I can't find one here, can't find one at all.
What else ? UK comedies - Peep show the second series, the Book Group, long overdue second series, too early for Little Britain series three unfortunately.
Horlicks, bread sauce mix, gravy granules, ready made English mustard, Cadbury's drinking chocolate. Oh and a bottle of Middleton whisky.

My flight leaves at 19.55. I had to ring the airline to check that the details hadn't changed from six months ago. Oh yes they had. Time, aircraft, seat. I need an aisle seat. The man with a northern English accent said,
'19.55, got you a seat a few rows back from the toilet.' Goodness me, I'm almost there already, twenty-four hour clock and the word toilet, even an understanding that 'I need an aisle seat' means 'I need the toilet,' we Brits are obsessed by our bodily waste, bless you my son.

I will be taking THE i-BOOK. I have not bonded with the i-book, but my own HP laptop is too heavy and clunky and doesn't have a built in network card, so we have to do swapsies. Kevin assures me that when I start using it I will love it, I'm lucky really that he's prepared to part with it.

So, as soon as the season opener of Battlestar Galactica is over, I will be on my way, toodle pip chums, see you when I get to Blighty.