But the bar did have sports on several of the TVs hanging off the wall, there was college football to watch, and on the other TVs, some kind of rotating series of short programs one of which featuring a reporter getting a rainbow hair-do like "influencers" have. Or something. Over six hours we saw get it done at least 5 times. And each time she seemed very pleased.
I drank beers, until we ran out of dollars.
And at seven, they put the World Series on. One of the competing teams is the Houston Astros, and there were several fans in the bar. Houston started the game 4 training 2-1, but had been 2-0 down 24 hours before, and were now on the road in Washington.
It was hard concentrating on the game as well as people watching. There was the drunk girl at the bar supping well from bottles of microbrew, a party of Australians were were angry that the service wasn't instantaneous, the Goth who might have been a musician with his manager, but looked like a man baby being looked after by his Dad. The goth was dressed in ankle length leather coat, huge gothy shoes and an Iron Maiden tour t shirt, from 2017, so not even a hipster reproduction of a Killers Tour one and there were the Mexican behind us who talked loudly at their mobile phones for hours on end.
The Astros began well, and just got better, and by the time the bottom of the 7th approached, were 8-1 up thanks to a grand-slam homer.
The whole bar cheered, then went to queue to get on the plane.
British Airways: no more coffee for me, teas from now on please, even if it was luke warm and weak, its still a cuppa. In a paper cup.
We strap ourselves in, but are told the entertainment system had failed and was rebooting. It was still rebooting two hours later. By which time we had eaten "dinner" and I had made two and a half mini bottles of wine disappear, hoping that I would fall into a drunken slumber.
In which case I succeeded. I fell asleep whith the plane somewhere south of Dayton, Ohio and I woke up with the plane about an hour from the Irish coast. I feel like crap, I'm sure I look like shit. And all around me, people had contorted themselves in odd shapes to try to get some shuteye. We had been offered an upgrade when we checked in: £750 for the next class up, eight grand of seat for seven fifty. Each. But we did not have that sort of money to throw round. Maybe we should have just stumped up the cash to get some sleep?
For breakfast we were served something like scrambled egg on bread. It looked horrible, tasted worse. I left it, and drank the tea.
And that was it, we dropped down from cruising height over Wales, got lower over the home counties, turned over London and landed.
On time.
We have to wait to get off, but that allows the bags to be unloaded.
We have to catch the shuttle train to the main building, then straight through the passport scanner. A ten minute wait for our cases, by which time the taxi was waiting outside.
Like clockwork.
We meet the driver and load the cases, she is also called Julie, and after a brief conversation at the beginning of the trip, she drives in silence, bordering on the edge of road rage.
But we get home quick.
No jams at all, so in under 90 minutes she was driving us to St Maggies up Jubilee Way, in bright sunshine, though at least twenty degrees coller than Housten the day before. Or was it still the same day?
I have no idea.
We go inside, put the kettle on for a proper brew. The unpack, start washing and me cooking dinner.
Dinner with lots of vegetables. As those weemed to be in short supply in the US.
I took one shot for the day, looking out into the back garden, just as the sun set, showing that we were home.And shattered.
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