After a too long pause, the time for blogging is back upon us, and this one comes to you from the AA lounge at Heathrow T3. Early indications are that it is not the best lounge I have ever enjoyed by quite some considerable distance, but I am making do with a glass of apple juice and some nice cookies for the time being. No sign of a full English buffet available anywhere, so just as well that I had a Leon porridge with Nicky before coming through security. Maybe I'll have some soup and a roll before heading off to the gate in a little while! Still the two lounge winners by a country mile are the Singapore Airlines lounge at Changi in Singapore, and then the Singapore Airlines lounge in KL (but then I did get to enjoy the first class facilities there!).
Ah, that's interesting, I think that they've just made an announcement about boarding, but I think I've managed to tuck myself away in a corner of the lounge where the announcements don't actually reach, so maybe I'll move once I've finished blogging. Still, it's at least 40 mins or so until boarding for my flight, and hey, I'm sure they won't go without me ...
I probably should be working right now rather than blogging, but to be honest it has been a busy enough week already, and one of the nice things about travelling is actually the opportunity to disconnect for a little while. I'd much prefer to decide between which book to read or which movie to watch on the plane, rather than which file to review (mind you, next week is also going to be pretty full on in the US and the demands from the UK aren't going to slow down much either).
Still, I think Nicky was a bit surprised that I didn't want to put at least one of my reading books into my suitcase, so I have three books in my hand luggage to choose from on the plane. One is The Great Gatsby, which I am half way through and will probably finish off during the trip, and then the other two are from my Amazon order (of 6!) that arrived yesterday, which was my first order with gift vouchers from my birthday (and thanks again to all those who contributed to the gift voucher fund!). I had a hard time deciding which 6 to buy first from Amazon, and then a hard time again trying to decide which 2 of 6 to bring with me on the plane. In the end, I have brought one fiction and one non fiction. The fiction that I have brought is "Who is Tom Ditto?" by Danny Wallace, and the non fiction is "Dream It! Do It!" by Marty Sklar, and I am looking forward to both of them.
Lots more to talk about on the topic of books. Firstly I finished "Letters of Note" earlier in the week, which quite simply has to be one of the best books I have ever read. Amazing, just amazing. (Again, a birthday present, and a big thankyou to John and Margaret for getting it for me.) Deserves its own post, if not several, and deserves many visits to the related website which you can find here.
The other thing that simply cannot go uncommented upon is the passing of Terry Pratchett this week. So so sad. A remarkable man with a remarkable imagination. I have only just started to realise this, having finally, finally cottoned on and read "The Colour of Magic" this January. I feel extremely lucky to know that I have 40 books-worth of Discworld out there to be enjoyed, but sad to know that it is now a finite resource.
Right, that's enough for now. Maybe time for some soup before my gate gets called, and maybe time even for a chapter of something as well. Who knows, perhaps a bit of offline onboard blogging to be posted later - depends on how engrossed in books and movies I get!
To the people who know that this message is for them - "Missing you already and see you very soon. xxxx"