Day 1 – Step 1… 5.20am up.  

Step 2… 6.50… lugging three extremely heavy suitcases downstairs to the waiting minicab which can barely squeeze them in.  The elderly driver is friendly and has a smoker’s cough.

Lots of traffic which then loosens up – like the driver’s cough.

At terminal 5, he helps me pile the three cases, a tatami mat, a silver case and my rucksack onto a pathetically small trolley.  He is again friendly on saying goodbye.

Step 3 … trying to check in all these cases with BA. And pay for the extra baggage.  As I was unable to get the cheaper rate for doing this online (a complaint many users have voiced through Tripadvisor etc) and am a bit perplexed now by the self-checking-in system at the airport, a business-like and efficient BA official offers to check the bags in for me and sort payment.  I thank her more than once for her assistance. First extra bag – £75.  Second extra bag £155.  Okay, I’d budgeted for this. She takes payment for the first bag.  

I thank her again for her help. She then says she will waive the charge on the second bag. What?!  She has softened a little – there’s even a hint of a smile. I thank her again – profusely.  And realise I have just encountered the first angel of this six week adventure.

Step 4 … Security.  Another official is announcing that we don’t need to take laptops etc out of our bags, we can just put the bag straight through the scanners. ‘So you can relax,’ she says.  I say – ‘one doesn’t often hear the word relax at security!’  She laughs.  Second angel?  

But wait – my silver cabin case is flagged up.  It contains some of the props for The Mistake – including a silver boule we use in the nuclear chain reaction experiment.  ‘You’ll need to open this case, sir.’  ‘Of course.  I expect it’s a silver ball in there.’  It is.  ‘What is it, sir?’ ‘Well, we use it in our play to represent uranium.’  ‘But it’s not actually uranium, I hope?’  ‘No, it’s from a boules set’. ‘Ah yes, I like playing boules.’  He scans it then with a smile waves me through.  Angel number 3?

Step 5 … the flight to Newark International.  Perfectly pleasant. And new cabin member Patrice – French obvs – makes me not one but two of the most perfect cups of tea I’ve ever tasted in a small paper cup while gliding along miles above the Atlantic.  Plus he brings me not one but two mini-packets of chocolate digestives!  All these angels out and about today!

Step 6 … we arrive in the USA!!  Newark International.

AND we are allowed in!  Uranium balls and all!  A few awkward questions at border control – ‘Am I now or have I been a nuclear physicist?’  Nope.  Just pretending to be one.  Joking aside, it seems anxieties about presenting a play like The Mistake at this time were unnecessary… and so we head to baggage reclaim to get our cases, looking up at the board to check for our connecting flight to Chicago.

Step 7 … PANIC!!!!  British Airways inform me it’s cancelled. They apologise for the inconvenience and offer me a consoling therapeutic chat with a robot – which I decline.  

We decide to head for the other terminal anyway, where our flight was scheduled to depart – and I can’t get the trolley with my three cases onto the Airtrain.  So I ditch the trolley but at the other end how will I manage three cases? There are no trolleys around.  But Chris, a friendly American who can see the mess we’re in, spots a trolley way down the platform where we get off and hauls it back for us.  Our first Angel in America.  Then the official at the check-in desks tells us, no, the flight’s not cancelled. Phew!  Plus she makes sure we’re not charged any extra for our many cases.  American Angel number 2.  (I guess British Airways were just trying, by panicking people with cancellations, to find some company for their lonely Chatbot…)

Step 8 … Chicago.  Our pre-booked Lincoln Navigator eats up our suitcases in its huge trunk and Manny our excellent driver gets us to our Airbnbs without any fuss, where we can finally zzzzzzz