The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Ten

Well, morning arrived on the day I had come to dread. I wasn’t ready to leave England, yet. I was ready for another two weeks.

Mark fixed a light breakfast and then headed out to pick up Sue from Holly’s, leaving me alone to start packing.

When I finished packing and lugged my bags down to the bottom of the stairs, I went into the living room and found Mark and Sue in front of the telly watching game 3 of the World Series!! Though the game wasn’t being broadcast live, it was a current broadcast of a recorded game! Very quickly I sat down and answered Mark’s questions for the lesson that had been denied us earlier in the week by the fluky television schedule!

All too soon, however, it was time to go. Mark helped me load my bags into the Defender, and after a long hug with Sue, we were off to London.

The ride was no different. We talked the whole way. We arrived at Heathrow too soon for our liking, and were suddenly muttering our reluctant farewells. The visit had turned out to be much more fun than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated a great, wonderful time. And now it was at its end. I did my part to keep the good-bye brief, as I’m sure I would have been in tears before much longer. I already missed those old Limeys!

The flight was on time and, after the usual hassles of air travel before ever getting on the plane, I was on the plane and heading west. One final joy of the trip was encountering the elderly(!) male flight attendant whose name on his food service smock read “Benjamin A. Dover.”

Yes, I met a real, living Ben Dover!!

I returned home much later that evening to the quiet dread of my empty, post-vacation apartment, with only memories, continued correspondences and Skype calls with Mark — and now this journal — to keep the trip alive.

It sucks to be back.