I’ve not yet taken my photo today but will add one to this text once we land safely at Newark airport. That will happen in five and a half hours time and will be around 6pm local time. It’s already nearly 5pm in my world. I’ve been up since 7am this morning when I finally woke after a restless night.

I write this 37,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean….over a part of the map with the deepest blue, meaning the sea is deeper here than anywhere on the journey. We travel at nearly 500 miles an hour and there are still 2,600 miles to Newark, our destination. The temperature outside this tin can is –60 C (I don’t know how to do a degrees sign)

I remain deeply anxious. I’ve just been to the loo and seen myself in the mirror. I’m red faced and spotty – nice!!!!!!

Before leaving home, I have been Mrs Crabby. I nearly blew a fuse last night when I discovered we didn’t have any wine in the house to calm my nerves. Nothing seemed right.

This morning I woke to blue skies and sunshine – how much I’d rather have spent the day digging my veggie garden – I’ve half a compost heap of muck to spread before I can plant my spuds and other veggies when I come home. David said he’s slept well, I wish I could say the same. For some reason we both needed comfort…he complained when I moved away from him that he needed me to stay close because he’d got a week before he could next recharge himself with my heat. I felt the deepest need to tell him of my love for him. We were both a bit cranky.

When I’d finally jammed as much of my stuff in my case as I could, Archie wouldn’t let me carry it downstairs. He lay along the floor at the bottom of the bed and refused to budge when I asked him to let me past with my case. Eventually I coaxed him to let me go past and lugged my case downstairs. When the taxi pulled into my drive, Rosie wouldn’t come near me. I had to call her for a good few minutes before she came flying from the garage like a little black bullet and gave me the hugest, sloppiest slurpy kiss ever. Bless her. I got tearful, the dogs got anxious, David got worried – it was a whole cauldron of bubbling stuff.

This is the longest time I’ve ever been away from home. I’ve never been away for more than a week, not even on holiday. It’s all so nerve-wracking and worrying.

The trauma of the airport didn’t help. Arriving in plenty of time there was so much hanging around that my anxiety just festered. When the security people searched my bag and me I was almost grateful – rather that than find myself on a terror flight. How I hate this. How I hate flying.

The map on the plane shows us heading towards nothing – not even the smallest sign of the States on the other side of the Atlantic yet. We’ve just passed the edge of Iceland where I know there are wonderful things – I see them each day in Pall Gudjonssen’s galleries. I wish I was going there, we’d have landed by now.

For now, all I want is to be on terra firma again. I can’t see why anyone wants to fly. It’ll be alright – I’ll get there and I’ll have an OK week. I can’t wait for next weekend till I meet David and see the PotD gang in NYC.

Somehow all of this just makes me even more aware that Cornwall is where I should be. It’s so benign and so quiet. It’s so far away from the slightest possibility of terrorist attack and so far away from pollution and traffic.

UPDATE: I’m here – in the USA – I’ve been on the New Jersey Turnpike, counting the cars and looking for America…

I’m safe!