After a late night of preparation off from Paxton to Heathrow and a full and difficult flight across the Atlantic and the US for our family holiday in California, collecting our "luxury" Lincoln Town hire car, which was our favourite
A very late night in the end; working on all of my last-minute arrangements so that it was after 1.15am before I had finally finished and relaxed with banana and Bournevita.
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Slept well in consequence and woke up around 6.45am on my own feeling quite rested and pleased that I only had myself to get ready and final toiletries to pack.
A tray of tea and cereal to have in bed and then soon washed, shaved, dressed and ready. The car packed without too much aggravation and off down the A1 with Diana, the girls and a vehicle full of luggage.
The M25 performed its normal trick of delaying us with no less than two accidents that had traffic stopped for ages. Then the off-airport car park eventually found after Diana had taken us off at the wrong exit.
Once we arrived at Terminal 4, we found the checking-in hall packed with long queues for each desk and then, upon eventually getting to the front of one of them, the news was bad. Not only had we been selected randomly for a luggage check, but they no longer had seats together; our four seats being all separate in mid row!
The flight was full and we were in for a fun time. After much negotiating, and some well-timed tears on Della's part, we got the two girls together which just left Diana and I. The long journey, cramped between two other men was punctuated by drinks, lunch, three films and a plastic tea.
I made it bearable by leaving my seat as much as possible, walking around and then taking over an attendant's seat at the rear of the plane. Time also with Della in her seat with her sitting on my lap and playing games with a couple of small boys and chatting to their mums.
Eventually landed and then had the long wait at immigration and the baggage reclaim before we could get the Hertz courtesy bus out to the parking lot to claim our "luxury" hire car. It was a Lincoln Town car which is our favourite and we welcomed the comfort that it gave after being cramped for so long.
The drive from Los Angeles Airport to Beach Boulevard in the Buena Park area of south Los Angeles. There were a host of motels in this area and we chose one called Motel 6 which was quiet, cheap and had interconnecting rooms for a combined price of about £45 per night.
I could plug my modem into the phone system but they did not have direct International Dialling billable to the room and so I had to investigate this.