September 9th - Evening Before US Trip

All the preparations are complete now. It's just a matter of having supper, watching a bit of TV, and then going to bed early to get whatever sleep I can before getting up at 4:30 AM tomorrow. It's been dismal over the last couple of days - summer has disappeared in a rush and, apart from my son, I haven't had any company. So it will be amazing to hit Heathrow at 6:30 tomorrow and start what will probably be my final American jaunt.

The journey tomorrow will be arduous - I fly to JFK, and then wait there three hours before flying on to Atlanta, which is another 2.5 hrs. There I pick up my car and negotiate the short drive to my hotel. I've read that the traffic in Atlanta is terrible, so even this could take a while. Hopefully I'll be in my room by about 8 US time, so can have a quick meal before bed. The plan then is to walk round the city on the first day so I can freshen up a bit before I go driving on days two and three.

While in the US I will be blogging using the Tablet I've bought. The keyboard is a bit soft, and it takes a bit longer to type than on my Desktop PC. So there will probably be more "typos" than usual, which I will edit when I come back. It will be handy to be able to blog in my room or airport lounges rather than have to hunt round for Internet cafes or PCs in hotel lobbies.

As I say this will probably be my last trip. Now that the Decree Absolute has come through I need to look at my resources when I get back and take some financial advice. I would like to get out of this studio flat - it would be good to at least have a bedroom and I also miss having a garden. But the biggest problem is that, outside work, I do not have a life. Friends who were there for me a lot at the start of the divorce have mostly drifted away. I see my children a lot but just as visitors - and I'll see less of them as they get on with their adult lives. Outside my family, most of the people I knew were professional colleagues and inevitably they've moved on. So I need to find some sort of social life at the weekends, otherwise my life will be nothing but work.

I've loaded my two MP3 players with music which is appropriate for where I'm visiting. What usually happens is that the items I've carefully chosen I don't play, but instead pick up on something I've just chucked on at the last minute. I've got mainly US stuff but a few British artists as well, such as Roy Harper whose albums snuck on there yesterday. He's got a new CD out the day I come back and I've pre-ordered it, so it should be there to collect upon my return. I'm hoping to discover some great new music out there in the US.

Hope I can get some reasonable sleep - like many people I don't settle well when I've got an early start. So here we go again !