We’re home. Started out from Captiva just after 9.30am yesterday, had breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe and then drove to Tampa, where we reached the airport at a ridiculously early 2pm. This was entirely my fault: I’m neurotic about being late for planes. Had to wait two hours to even drop our bags off (we’d checked in on line the previous evening), then went through customs, where my rucksack was closely examined and I set the buzzer off. All well, though. We emerged at Starbucks, and I had a caramel apple cider to see what it tasted like: surprisingly good, despite its sweetness.

So we were in the departure lounge by about 4.20pm. Only two shops, so we had to spend most of our time reading. I bought another Randy Wayne White thriller. Saw our plane arrive just before 6pm, and we atarted boarding about 7.10pm. Everyone was on board by about 7.35pm, and the plane left at 7.45pm – five minutes earlier than its official schedule, and half an hour before its slot.

Dot and I had the same two seats as on the flight over, but this time there was someone in the window seat – a young Angolan guy who seemed almost as nervous as Dot. But he only disturbed us once during the flight, which seemed to go reasonably quickly, though we didn’t sleep much. We arrived at Gatwick – or as the pilot called it, Heathrow (you have to worry) at about 8.30pm (half an hour early) and it took the usual hour to get through customs and collect our luggage. Whereas in Tampa all the customs officials were allocated to the American arrivals, at Gatwick there were about a dozen for non-Europeans, and just three for us – reduced to two halfway through. Being English just doesn’t pay off anywhere.

Reached our car with no trouble, if you can call hauling three heavy bags no trouble, and left Gatwick about 9.45am (4.45am Tampa time). Traffic not too bad: we called in at the services on the A11 and had a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Reached home at 2pm, which meant we had been en route for just about 24 hours. Very tired in last stages of drive. It’s now 8.30pm and we’ve kept awake by doing lots of stuff – unpacking, washing (in Dot’s case), sorting the mail, and so on. But by the second episode of Desperate Housewives, we were both falling asleep, so we’re now going to bed.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention that I went for a walk Friday afternoon and at Tween Waters met Barb and Dot coming back from having their nails done. In the evening we went to Redfish Blu(e)fish, which was excellent again. Before leaving yesterday morning I walked down to the dock and saw a couple of manatees.

While on the dock either then or the previous day, I saw a guy wearing a teeshirt with the excellent inscription: “Be patient, and you will achieve everything. Be impatient, and you will achieve everything quicker.”

The picture (by Dot) is of the antiques shop mentioned in the previous blog.