the end of the Boston trip

As mentioned several times, firmbutfair came to visit Boston! Yay! And then had to put up with me manically trying to see everyone I knew, doing work to a very tight deadline, and generally not putting a lot of effort into being a host. But then we went on a road trip across snowy New England in a Mustang convertible. Yes, that makes just as much sense as it sounds like. Our first stop was Newport RI, where we discovered that they have razor-sharp curbs which are just waiting to tear the shit out of a Mustang tire. Hertz was admirably quick in dealing with us, but the accident combined with our late start made it seem like a very good idea to just stay in Newport an extra day.

Saturday was spent driving to Providence to exchange the car, through buckets of relentless rain. Lo and behold, they gave us another convertible. Still kinda useless, but it's all about the principle of the thing really. At any point in the weekend, we had the *option* of opening the top. We stopped at an Outback, where the Australian kitsch delighted Mike, and where we watched some poor old man look at the bathroom doors in confusion and have to stop a waitress to ask whether he was a "bloke" or a "sheila". Got back to Newport, found a place selling some pretty greasy fried clams, ate, and then I spent all night being spectacularly sick.

Sunday we left the tiny yet interminable (speed limit 30 on the state roads! Unless it's 25.) state of Rhode Island, en route to Lake Placid, NY. A lot of driving, but that was the point. Lake Placid hides itself very well in the dark, but if you have sufficient faith to keep driving down the windy highway you are rewarded with a small-scale ski resort. We checked into the Hilton, discovered that they wanted $15.95 per night for the in-room wireless, and were so shocked that we actually stayed offline that night.

Since the point was the driving and not the destination, we left Lake Placid around 10 the next morning to get back to Boston, by way of having a coffee with dolohov in Hanover NH. Being foolish, we looked for roads on the map which seemed to go in the direction we wanted, and found ourselves about 14 miles from the NY/VT border wondering where exactly this "route 4" turnoff was, anyway. We stopped at a convenience store, got the "oh god no you don't want to pay attention to those silly maps", and got one hand-drawn for us which got us there via a road that seemed to have been cleared once or twice in the preceding couple of weeks. 45m later we were in Vermont. An hour after that (still foolishly following the road atlas) we found ourselves wiiiiiiinding up a bunch of switchbacks crossing the mountains, and some time later we actually made it to Hanover. After coffee, we drove on to Concord where we ate at a restaurant I really really like, then made it back to Boston in time for me to see people at the Diesel before I left.

My flight left on Tuesday; Mike's was supposed to leave on Friday. On Monday he decided that the extra couple of days was not enough time to do anything really interesting, so looked up BA just to see how much it would cost to change his ticket at that late date. Answer: £35. "Okay." So he got a flight on BA about 45m before my AA one. And thank God for that, because:

Loading up the car on the way to the airport on Tuesday (this would be the 11th) I lifted my computer backpack into the back seat, and immediately felt like someone had put a strap around my middle and YANKED. I couldn't lift a thing after that, not even my tiny duffel bag. I kind of suspended myself on my arms for the entire ride to the airport, because it hurt too much to try to settle my weight, and gave directions to Mike through gritted teeth. I got a wheelchair assist at the airport and everything. Skipped all the queues, got told "There will be a wheelchair waiting at Heathrow when you get there", and even got to ride on one of those motorized carts and skip the immigration queue (not that much remained by the time they got me off the plane.) And then, bless them, Mike and his brother Rob were at the other end waiting for me, carried all my bags between them, and generally tried their best to make me comfortable.

Wednesday, Mike hired a car to take me and all my crap back to Oxford. And since he'd gotten a birthday gift for his mother, and Leamington is only 45m or so up the motorway from Oxford, he went to visit them for a bit. Of course I had to come too because meeting other people's parents is fun and curiosity-satisfying; it's them meeting your parents that is scary. So I did. They are nice. Gave me tea, stollen (German Christmas cake), and let me gawk at all the pictures of young Mikey on the walls. Which is really the best bit of any parental visit.

Thursday I went to the GP and got prescribed Valium for the back, along with advice to keep taking painkiller. "Valium: Your back will still hurt, but you won't care!" I continued to have to ask people to do all my lifting, and generally feel like the helpless heroine in some really bad novel.