This is 'Lady Jill' (aka tearinghair) posting this introduction by proxy (gen2) because I am currently asleep in California.
I’m on my (more or less) two-yearly visit to the family in USA. It’s particularly exciting this time because it’s my first visit to their new house; they moved from northern California down to the Los Angeles area eighteen months ago. So when I’m home again I shall have a precise picture in my mind of the layout of the house and its surroundings; to be able to Skype is wonderful, but it doesn’t fill in all the details in the same way as an actual visit. It will be interesting to see how the neighbourhood compares with their previous one; the community spirit in Sunnyvale was quite the best I have ever come across – absolutely amazing.
The one fly (sorry!) in the ointment is the fact that it involves air travel. I’m a nervous flyer at the best of times, and recent events have brought home very clearly the risks involved; we all feel the agony of the waiting relatives and friends. But it remains the safest form of travel, and if I want to see the family there’s no other realistic option. Circumstances have meant that I haven’t been able to travel as much as I’d have liked since retirement, so I wasn’t going to pass up this chance.