Baptism of Fire

We arrived in North Carolina with all our eight suitcases and assorted hand luggage courtesy of American Airlines on Tuesday 4th August. We left Kenilworth at 6am, endured an horrendous long long check-in at Heathrow, poor kids - no time for breakfast and we boarded our direct flight (thank goodness) to Raleigh-Durham.

Our next hurdle was the US Immigration queue, especially as we had disembarked the plane last and were therefore last in the queue and it was a good hour and a half later that we emerged in baggage reclaim. That part was easy though as it was only our luggage left on the carousel.

Next stop - Hire car company - Easy, and we were off on the road.

"Just follow me, says Ian, it's not far to the apartment". So I follow, he's in the 'BIG' car with kids and luggage and I'm in the small car - a ZZ Top kind of thing with the pushchair and not much else. He's zooming off ahead and I'm pootling along behind trying to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road again and trying to keep up and, all of a sudden we're on the Interstate and he's off into the distance, and it begins to rain. Can I work the windscreen wiper switch? Can I heckers like - and then I realise I can't see Ian for all the cars, big ones, in front who have zipped in front of me and my rain splattered windscreen - and I'm frantically hitting the intermittent wiper again and again as it really starts to pour and there is a loud clap of thunder.

At this point it dawns on me that I have no bloody idea where we are going - I've never been here before - where we are staying or how to get there on my own...and I have no mobile phone, no ID. Panic. I put my foot down and through the rain and the intermittent wipers that are starting to protest at their mis-use, I eventually spy Ian and the kids. Then I lose them again. Then I see them, then I lose them...and I'm exclaiming loudly at no-one in particular and cursing everything and everybody.

Miraculously I spy Ian ahead - don't know how as at this point all the cars were looking pretty much the same, the only distinguishing feature was that the BIG car had a Virginia licence plate, don't know when I spotted that and stored it in my memory but see it I did and it stopped me driving all the way to Florida.