Well, this has been a journey and a half. I have managed to get from a freezing and snowed in England to sunny Palm Springs. I wasn't going to let mere weather stand in my way. People were being asked only to travel if their journeys were really necessary. Clearly mine was.
We don’t know how to do snow in England. I know it doesn’t often happen, but it’s not exactly unheard of. Clearly we can learn. After a much criticised mess-up with gritters a few years ago around Cambridge, the main roads there were clear when I started out on my journey at 5 am yesterday. The coping skills don't extend far, though. London was at a virtual standstill, and very few planes made it out.
Mind you, all I really did was stick at it. It was many helpful people along the way who got me here, from the train staff in Cambridge who showed up to work and ran the first service into London over very snowy tracks to the man at Paddington station who, when all the boards were showing no trains to Heathrow, told me to run to Platform 10 where a train was about to leave; the man on the platform who threw my suitcase in after me when I literally fell on my face into the train; the airline staff who rerouted me onto a plane that managed to take off, and the lovely man in San Francisco who re-routed zombie me via Los Angeles to cut two hours off my eventual arrival time. Not forgetting, most importantly, Mark, who dragged himself out of bed after only 2 hours of sleep to get me to the station in the first place.
Still, all of that fades into insignificance. I'm here now. The hotel has tea. The broken shower in my room is fixed, and I am ready to jump into TED with both feet. Here goes...
