Merry Christmas from Baltimore, where I finally arrived after a woman waiting along with me and all of the other disgruntled Baltimore-bound travellers announced, ‘oh, for the love of God, I’m a United stewardess, I’ll work this flight’ and thus allowed us to depart. I don’t think they made her serve any drinks, however. By that time, the suffering had become so extreme that I had purchased a violent Pepto-Bismol pink-coloured hooded sweatshirt in the airport gift shop to help me with my (despite sweater and winter coat and scarf) violent shivering. I think I was going in to shock from having been awake for 24 hours, which is really pathetic and perhaps a worrying sign that if I ever try to travel the Antipodes I will go into a coma.
I’m now happily ensconced in the family manse, which I must say is rather lovely - and I am suitably impressed by the way in which my parents have essentially recreated our old home, except that it is even nicer. Apparently the people here are very friendly: when we take the dog (ninety-eight in dog years) for walks, Dadelstein waves happily at everyone we meet and asks them how they’re getting on. Sometimes they look a little bit surprised.
In the bathroom yesterday morning, while rifling for some toothpaste, I found the nasal spray that was prescribed to me while I was in university and suffering from violent allergies. It expired in 2002. And yet my mother had packed it, moved it to Baltimore, and displayed it nicely on a shelf.
I mentioned this to her at lunch.
She raised her eyebrows.
“How was I to know you couldn’t use it again? It was nearly full. Besides, you have a lot to thank me for,” she said.
Too right.
