Ok folks, this is a personal entry about a distressing event. Please don't get upset with me when it gets distressing. I am only recounting the truth as I remember it.
September 9th, 2001. I was staying at my sister's husband's apartment in New York, in Greenwich Village, sleeping on the futon in the main room. I was at the end of my two month trip around the world and was just "passing through" on my way home. I was due to leave on the 10th and that day was going to go to the Stock Exchange.
Just after 9 we get a phone call. It's Richard, my sister's husband, telling us someone's just flown into the World Trade Centre. Immediately we put the news on, and the first reports were coming in. Someone filmed the second one coming in, and they put that on the news. As soon as I saw it I knew it was no accident.
The rest of the day and the next few days are a bit of a blur. I remember us all sat around the room in shock watching the news for hours on end. One of the guys who came to sit with us, a friend of Theresa or Richards, I can't remember, had seen people jumping out of the windows to save themselves. The towers came down in fairly quick succession to each other and I remember thinking that when the second one came down, it was a replay of the first one until I looked out the toilet window and saw it go down. I went out later in the day to see people sat in parks watching the smoke and listening to their radios. None of the phones were working but for some reason the internet was so we managed to get emails out to our family that we were OK. I remember sending one to Tony, who then kindly sent it on to all the people I'd been emailing about my trip round the world, who then sent me emails back saying they were glad I was OK.
We'd spent lunch not two days before in the World Trade Centre cafe, I remember lifts that made your stomach jump, and afterwards we wondered what had happened to those people there. My flight, of course, did not leave the next day, so I had a couple of extra days in New York. I couldn't go visit the Empire State Building and taxis could only take you so far downtown. I particularly remember going to an Indian a couple of days later downtown and making some crass remark about the mango ice cream being an insult against humanity.
The real thing I remember about my trip is the flight home. I'd spent days trying to find out from BA when I could get a flight. In the end they started flying back on the Friday. So, on Friday, I made my way to JFK International airport. My sister had told me to come back if they weren't flying out but I knew I probably wouldn't be coming back. JFK was complete chaos, nobody knew what flight they were going to take if any, and you just checked your baggage in and hoped. I had a moment trying to explain what a digeridoo was (I had just been to Australia) and had to put it in the hold as it was a dangerous instrument... I then just sat for what was probably hours waiting to see if I'd get a flight out. In the departure lounge, if you could call it that, there were no shops, nothing. I was starving and hoping that I would get through and get something to eat. I'd promised myself cesar salad if I did. Sometime a bit later the lady who had served me at checkouts came round saying "Are you Roberts?" I answered yes, that I was. She'd got me a ticket to London, and somehow remembered me, it was the most bizarre thing ever. so I finally got through the passport control and to a restaurant, where, believe it or not, they were serving cesar salad. I was squashed in economy and on a night flight, but I didn't give a shit, I was going home. None of the payphones were working but I managed to get to the information desk and ask one of the ladies there if I could borrow her mobile to call my sister. I was lucky once more as there was such a queue for the phone that soon after I got through the lady wasn't letting anyone call on her phone any more.
One thing I remember about the flight home is that I was really scared to change my watch back to English time until I knew I was back in London. You have no idea how overjoyed I was when we flew over London and I saw the Millenium Wheel. Then I knew I was home.
As I came in this morning in the fog created by burning bonfires I reflected on this and on many previous bonfire parties, and wondered how long it would be before they banned bonfires due to them giving off too much carbon dioxide. That would be a very sad day.
Because this is what will happen... my obsession with hoyas reached a climax last week when I came home and decided to buy 6 hoyas after a few bevvies. I recieved the plants four days later and then was slightly concerned about how I was going to make them all grow. I decided, as it's a bit cold now, to get them a little propagator in the hope that will make them happy and root quickly.
And, of course, the Batmobile.
Ah! And who was right beside him... Yes, little old me! Standing between Ross and Karsten (that's the other tall bloke, possibly just a wee bit taller than Ross at 7'4), which happened a lot to me, actually made me feel quite small!
Meanwhile The Sonicator Broke. Again, this may not seem so much, but when you've walked eight times upstairs and you have to go up again for the final time and stand in a fridge for 10 minutes You Are Quite Pissed Off (and Exhausted).
If life was a box of chocolates, this would be a week full of peanut cracknells. Those of you not familiar with Quality Street as I have been over many Christmasses might need to know that peanut cracknell was mashed peanut covered with chocolate and one of the family's least favourite chocolates, so much so most of them were given to the dogs. They were horrible. And so this week has been horrible. But the week is finished now, and there were some nice moments, such as pizza, biscuits and chocolate in front of a really trashy film with Ellie. That was a Lindlt Tiramisu moment (mmmm they are good). Going to watch Pirates of the Carribean on Wednesday despite being completely exhausted was also really good (probably a toffee and hazelnut-centered chocolate). Yesterday, we went to Stratford upon Avon which was weird because last time I was there, almost a year ago, I was one of the shortest people (being on a tall trip there ARE women taller than me, yes really. They're lovely too.) there. This time I was the tallest. Picnic lunch was fun but sitting in the very topmost row of a baking hot theatre (I suffer slightly from vertigo and from heat exhaustion) trying to work out what the hell Patrick Stewart was doing with a load of shiprecked mariners, spirits and a man who smelt of fish on an island (this was the Tempest, by the way) was a bit hard to fathom and extremely hard to stay awake through. We reckoned Mr Shakespeare, much as I respect his work, was on some kind of drug throughout the writing of this. But it was something different, and it was good to see a play in a theatre I'd gone round the back of last time I was there.
This one is a Hoya Engleriana. There are more pictures of the buds opening here and you can read more about my hoyas here (also linked as My Hoya Page).
Even spam is nicer than emails that tell you you've won $1 million but you will have to pay some "transfer expenses" to get it. Ha.
I came past this rather bizarre image on my way home yesterday. I believe it had happened just before I came past in the morning as they were arranging the flowers as I went past. I have no idea whatsoever how this happened, as this lorry is right in the middle of a pedestrian/bus area. I can only believe that it came careering down Park Street and somehow managed to end up here. Ooops.
Ah yes. French cider. Yummy yummy, for those of you who ever go to France and come back with a bottle of this for me will make a very good friend....
Dance with me! My first ever Hoya flower!!! Woooohooooooooooooo!
Maybe it is....
Imagine playing musical statues and being in that position when the music stops... Ouch!
Hills gets Singstar, again. I was sad enough this time to take a picture of it, like when I used to win the hard Minesweeper... I think maybe I should get out more/not be on the "easy" setting...
"I go to the hills when my heart is lonely..."
Now it's attacking the curtain pole!
The other day I showed you my brand new seedlings. A few weeks later they've got a bit bigger... My mother, nicely, tells me these tomatoes are going to get to 2 feet high - ok not as big as the hoya but big enough.... whimper
