The curious miracle that is intercontinental flight

We are on our travels again, this time on the right coast of the United States - or the East Coast for those of us with a more conventional sense of geography. And yes, there is some 'touristical' activity - baseball, the Freedom Trail, a national park, sea otters and whale watching, amongst other things - but I also have family here, in New York and in Boston.

So, yesterday, Ros and I presented ourselves at Heathrow's Terminal 5 for what can be astonishing tedium. It turned out, fortunately, to be an astonishingly uneventful trip and, just twelve and a half hours after leaving central London, we were ensconced in my second cousin Leon's apartment in Brooklyn, catching up on the odd nine years or so, waiting for his wife Patti and children, Vayden and Finlay, to get home.

That is, when one stops to think about it, pretty amazing. After all, it is nearly 3,500 miles from Heathrow to New York's JFK, against the prevailing winds. And yet, we now take it for granted - people do it for a weekend break. Even in my lifetime, long haul air travel has become (relatively) commonplace.

Within a few hours, my father's cousin Chris, and his partner Beena, had shown up, and we were talking politics (why, exactly, Donald Trump? Actually, just why?), family and stories of travel, house refurbishment and how Polish contractors are so efficient (yes, that's true here too...).

It was nice, and a gentle start to our trip, before jet lag hit with the impact of a brick wall, and Chris and Beena drove us into Manhattan and to our rather conveniently located hotel - a story for another time, perhaps...