Antigua

4:30 am start and a taxi to the airport for the 7:00 flight. On time landing at Gatwick -2 degrees and they had transferred my wheels to the connecting flight. That was not the plan so I refused to leave the assistance trolley till I got Genny back. It finally arrived but with both my carefully crafted taillights smashed off. They would be retrievable but later with the aid of hot glue and a soldering iron

I was now running late for my flight to Antigua so set to max speed I scorched the north terminal, security and gate 568 at full speed. It is such a contradiction seeing the disabled guy burning rubber in a pedestrian area. Yesterday in a rush to catch a bus I overtook a cyclist in lycra going up a steep hill - so cool, bet he was secretly raging.

8 hours 20 mins on the Antigua flight- I took advantage of all the free alcohol and watched the Johnny Worricker trilogy with Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Winnable Ryder and Michael Gambon on my tablet.

It is tiresome looking at that tiny seat-back screen watching the progress map - Love the way the auto-correct changed Winola to Winnable makes her sound like a prise.

This flight is freezing. I left home in the dark to a frosty start wearing thermals, an old thick Tk-Max wool jumper with holes in it, a summer jacket and thermal long John's. The plan was to ditch the surplus in Gatwick for the exotic trip as there is no room in my tiny luggage to keep it for the return. I'm still in the thermals and jumper having only jettisoned the wooly hat. We are about ½ way there now on the tiny map travelling at 807km/h and -56c degrees outside temperature time for episode 3 “Salting the Battlefield”

Hurray - just arrrived at last with Emily to collect me in style eh?

Genny has a new home in the sunshine

More tomorrow after supper with Emily, rum and "ting" and a long overdue sleep xxx