No sooner had I landed here in the Homeland–avec chest cold and jetlag–when it was time to add some conditioner to my toiletries kit and hit the road again.

I’ll bet Willie uses conditioner.  I didn’t for three weeks because I got a shampoo with conditioner built in. Hahahahahaha.

First, let me boldly proclaim that I rarely get jetlag. The reason is I always sleep through long flights, waking long enough to eat the meal or snack and drink water so I don’t shrivel into a tiny Andean mummy.  But this trip was different and this flight was different.

My seat-mate was a cheery young man from Nebraska who is applying for medical schools and had been in London for a couple of months doing quair things like create glowing viruses. His family was from Nepal and we discussed folk magic and being Asian and the pressures of being an only child. And movies and books and…

You get my point. We talked a lot.

Then we watched movies. On a flight from London, you can watch approximately four of them. I watched “Oz” and “Jane Eyre” and Jack the Giant Slayer” and “Lincoln.”

So I didn’t sleep. I got back stateside with a chest cold and a monster case of jetlag. Not my perfect ending to a wonderful trip but still okay.

The evening after I arrived home–after delayed flights from Atlanta because of the weather–my daughter was coming home to see me and get her car inspected. She had a side-swipe accident on I-40. She’s okay, the other car is okay and everything is going to be fine. It wasn’t her fault–she was swerving to avoid an 18 wheeler that moved into her lane, apparently having not seen she was there.

So we spent some time on Friday getting that organized. We finished it up on Monday and she returned to her place to continue job-hunting. All was well until her phone died on Wednesday night, after she’d used that number for all the job applications she’d filled out.  So, Thursday morning, I got her a new phone, delivered it to Boone and continued from there to New York.

Where I am now. 

The house above is in Tennessee, not far from Laurel Bloomery, a sweet little town. I made some “through the hills” photos to remind myself of the beauty of this place that is my homeplace.

Helpful since I’m longing to return to either Scotland or northwest England (Cumbria) and live forever and ever and join the WI.