The ordeal of a late and delayed overnight flight back to England on TWA but we had time to check out the Anaheim Plaza shopping mall and enjoy their very special choc-ices and then I insisted on the girls having spreads of vacant seats to sleep on the plane. We left a heat wave in the USA but we had a chilly and foggy drive back in England to find The Hayling View cold but safe and sound. Another 50 point fall on Wall Street as Congress and Presidential negotiating teams to reach a compromise on the budget deficit.
A much better night’s sleep, with few interruptions. In fact, we overslept and were still asleep at 6.00am! I had a headache to prove the point. The news this morning was of yesterday’s 50+ point fall on Wall Street, where the trouble has been caused by the failure of the Congress and Presidential negotiating teams to reach a compromise on the budget deficit. The pressure is now on for a deal by the end of the week, or the markets will enter free fall again. Other news is of Weinberger’s imminent departure and his wife’s denial that her health is the reason. All in all, the American news broadcasts are very parochial and take account of world events only if they have a close impact on this sub-continent. The weather is quite a key feature. Throughout central and eastern USA, there is a veritable heatwave going on, with record ‘highs’ in the 80degsF for this time of year. On the other hand, these cooler and showery spells in southern California are equally unusual. We went off to Coco’s for the last time to have breakfast and I had to mention to them about their non-smoking area. Though comprising most of the restaurant, it is still not large enough to accommodate all the non-smokers, who have to wait in the morning, as smokers are sat straight down.
It probably means that the trend to non-smoking is accelerating and leaving the status of their seating allocations behind the times. It was showering this morning and so we went back to the hotel to pack. In fact, Di did the packing, the children watched TV cartoons, and I wrote up my journal and finished off last week’s magazines. I checked out of the hotel and paid about $12 in telephone call charges and then we packed all of our belongings into the car and set off west to Los Angeles Airport. A reasonable drive, though the traffic was quite heavy, we though, for a Wednesday mid-morning. In fact, we stopped for a while at Anaheim Plaza – one of the areas few shopping precincts – and bought our last minute souvenirs and gifts. We tried to get the items that were the best relative value – another copy of the Spycatcher book, a Commodore computer game and a few other things. We had lunch in a Carl’s Jr hamburger place and then I treated the family to another nice type of ice cream. The practice was for the assistant to take vanilla ice cream bars out of the freezer, into which was present a long stick. Then the ice cream was dipped into hot molten chocolate in a pot and then quickly into trays of various coatings, such as nut crumbs, chocolate ‘hundreds and thousands’ or mixtures. Whilst the whole set, a paper cupped tray was placed over the stick so that when the whole was withdrawn it could act as a retainer for any crumbs. These rather superior chock ices were an instant hit with the family and I wished we had found them earlier in our holiday. Strange to walk round this vast internal shopping mall and linked department and speciality stores, because there were few other people about. It made us wonder how the shops could possibly make a living. We concluded that either, A) the shopping traffic was very cyclical and we were there at a very quiet time, or B) property rates were so low that space is squandered (in comparison with England), or C) that the continuing Stock Market crash had put out of mind shopping trips for luxuries for the time being. To the car by about 1.30-2.00pm, then the rest of the drive to Los Angeles Airport. I filled up the car at a nearby petrol station and then took the car back to the Hertz rental return station. After the cashier studied our rental details long and hard, he concluded that we were not liable for any charges apart from the tax, but it still cost me $14. We took our 10 cases in the Hertz courtesy bus to the TWA Airline check in and proceeded to dispose of the largest cases, to leave us a single light piece of cabin baggage each. Then we made our way in good time to the planned boarding gate 30, bought some papers and books to read on the plane and waited to be called. Wait we did. The plane was due to take off at 5.50pm, but it was 10.50pm, 5 hours late, that it finally did. First, the incoming flight and aircraft was delayed, then, the port inner engine had a leaking oil seal, which defied attempts to fix it, despite considerable delays and elapsed time. Finally, after a number of false starts and much confusion and disinformation, they decided to put us onto a different aeroplane. The process of moving across the passengers, freight, cleaning and refuelling a different plane took the final two hours of our delay. The weather in LA had turned very wet by now and the rain was pouring down, but fortunately that only led to a small part of the delay. Once aboard, the family were quite single minded about securing spreads of multiple vacant seats, so that Diana, Daniel, Debbie and Daniella could each stretch out and get some sleep. This, despite the attempts of an officious hostess to get other passengers into the spaces, which I steadfastly resisted. I was in no mood to be conciliatory. First, the incoming aeroplane was late in the first place. This must have been poor management or the mechanical fault developing and, in either case, contingency plans were inadequate. They kept us hanging around for too long before calling for an aircraft replacement, having already boarded us on and off the faulty plane. Then, at no time, did they follow company policy and board families with small children first and we were left to cope in the crowded queues at each stage. Instead of arriving back in England after lunch, it was early evening before we touched down. The family had slept, but I had sat and read and still had to manage the car journey home. Then at least the car journey went well and we were back about 9.00pm. We let the children have a bowl of cereal each, then got them to bed as soon as possible. I just had time to get the house heating started and then we turned in too and slept like logs. The return to England was a chilly and foggy experience and the house had really cooled down in our absence.