Six Words You Hope Never To Think To Yourself 24 Hours Before a Trans-Atlantic Flight

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

No photos today, I'm sure you'll understand why.

I'm sorry to say this is no April Fools Day joke. It happened. Kristin and I got in to her place at Oxford late last night, after the kids were asleep, so that meant that Wyatt's first encounter with me was when he woke up to pee in the middle of the night and found me sleeping next to the toilet. Well, not really sleeping so much as letting the hours pass through my haze, and noticing that your arms will go numb if you lay on hard tile for long enough.

The good news is that if you are going to be violently ill with food poisoning, it is best to do it in the home of your college roommate who no doubt saw you sick in college a few times, for more self-induced reasons, (and about whom you remember a story or two, including something about a radiator), but who is also now the excellent mother of two children and voluntarily, on purpose pregnant with a third. She will be very sweet and understanding and bring you lots of lovely pillows and a big comforter and make the best sympathetic noises and there will be a little toast made for you in the morning. It's okay to refuse her requests that you post, on your blog, for all the world to see, all the food you ate yesterday in airports and Edinbrough pubs and even on the airplane, it really IS too embarassing, so keep that between the two of you.

My other tip for dealing with food poisoning the day before your flight back to the states is to make sure the hotel you book for one night in your departure city is the hotel you MOST want to stay in, not the one that seems like a better deal. After all, it's just one night. And thank god, so is this food poisoning.

And now, I'm off to pack my considerably heavier bags and hope that I can muster up the strength to get them up to my posh rooms at St Martin's Lane.

H