Kettering to New York

Finally, our adventure starts with a beautiful bright and sunny day in Kettering. The air has a real autumnal feel to it, lets hope we have more of this in the States.

We rarely travel by train so starting with a train to London seems a great way to start, and British Rail co-operated no delays, seats available even for 2 large suitcases. The most difficult part of the whole journey was walking down to the underground and getting on the correct tube, all we can say is go with the info on the front of the tube. You think when you set out in your little bubble of excitement that you're the only ones going away but, as you sit on the tube to Heathrow gradually the commuters become less and the travellers with cases become more. Towards the end of the line its only the holiday makers and airport terminal staff left.

Heathrow Terminal 5, wow, clean spacious and efficient, security friendly but very thorough. And then there's the shops and restaurants behind. Thinking to distract me from all that glitters, Dave steered a firm path to Gordon Ramsey's restaurant knowing all to well that a well cooked and presented meal would work a treat. And what a treat, superb smoked salmon, beetroot & goats cheese salad followed by sea bass, heaven!!!

It was all going a tad too well so British Airways provided the hiccup with a 2 hour delay for a faulty engine.To their credit they found another plane, moved all the luggage to it (we were all about to get on when the fault occurred, thank goodness not in mid Atlantic) and gave us vouchers for a drink before taking off two and a half hours late. The flight however was perfect, great seats together, quiet (no children) and good movies to watch.

At Last 3am British time we landed at JFK. I'm glad I first came in at night, so impressive with all the lights, streams of red tail lights and white headlights, islands of intense light from hotel and advertising hoardings, amazing.

The hotel shuttle to Days Inn, very efficient, hotel well not quite so amazing but comfortable none the less. And so to sleep only to wake very early, am on UK or US time I'm not sure, I only know its 6am here and raining hard, the news says heavy thundery rain overnight has caused chaos and flooding! We'll soon find out when we pick up the car and move on to Boston.