Yes, the final leg of the trip was New York, a place I'd always wanted to visit but never had the opportunity to before. Thanks to a very good price on an arrive-LAX & depart-JFK flight and the fact that my HLWW associate Camille (and her husband Steve) had graciously offered to let me stay with them in New Jersey, the opportunity was now here - even though it was a small window of opportunity.

I arrived at La Guardia later than originally planned on Monday afternoon and was scheduled to fly out back to the UK on the Wednesday evening. I caught a bus/shuttle from the airport to Grand Central Station (remember Terry Gilliam's Fisher King commuter-dancers?). Making contact with Camille and Steve, they arranged to pick me up just south of Times Square, so suitcase in hand - and arm almost out of socket - I trundled along doing the first part of my sight-seeing. With luggage deposited in boot/trunk, we headed to Little Italy and delicious food (ravioli with the piping hot sauce actually proving NOT to blow my ears out in hysterical cartoon fashion and proving VERY tasty!)

The following day Steve dropped me in Manhattan around 9:00 as he headed off for business appointments and we arranged to meet again around 5:00pm or so. So I made the most of the day and started off at the Empire State Building. After standing in line for about an hour I made it to the top and the legendary spectacular views of the city. I bought Big Apple souvenirs there and smiled at the irony that I couldn't get a cell-phone signal. Then I headed down broadway and back up, taking in SoHo, The Village, Ground Zero, Union Station and many shops.

I was tempted to also visit the Statue of Liberty, but the queues just to get to the Statten Island Ferry looked to be several hours wait and so that was pencilled in for another time.

My heatwave powers were still operating at full-force and it was interesting to see how different a sunny New York looked from the shades of grey I'd expected from watching far too many Law & Order spin-offs. It was a relatively clean city, fast-paced but pretty friendly. I felt safe and welcomed and would recommend a visit to anyone.

I met up with Steve and a couple of his friends around 6:00 and then we both headed back to New Jersey for another meal out with Camille and her brother too. It was great to be treated to their fantastic Italian-style hospitality and it was just a shame I didn't have longer. The following morning (with temperatures up from mid 80s to mid 90s!) Steve dropped me at the local station and I headed back into Manhattan. Annoyingly the suitcase wheel (which admittedly had weathered a lot) developed a wobble and so I probably pulled a few more muscles in my arm as I went to meet the shuttle to the airport. However I made it intact, checked in with relative ease and gladly settled back to wait for the boarding call. I collapsed into my seat on the plane and drifted off for a few minutes of the six hour flight...and before I knew it was back in the UK.

Peh.