NEW YORK back again

Our second week in NY was pretty uneventful, besides my birthday and the day after. In the late morning I took the sleeping cherub to Trump Towers for lunch - salad and a glass of bubbly. It is super tacky, but you gotta do it. My waitress was orange from fake tan lotion or too much sun-bed, with dazzling white teeth and designer black glasses' frames (and matching blue-black hair). After lunch we walked up to the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park because I've never seen the Dakota or the mosaic before. Droves of tourists came and went while I sat there with Zee - Strawberry Fields is a hot spot.


Belle offered to babysit Zee so Keith and I went out in the evening for supper. You'd think that we'd be waiting at the door in anticipation of Belle's arrival so that we could dash off and abandon Zack. Nope! Belle and Keith were hanging around waiting for ME to get back with Zack.
Then we needed to change... ... look decent... ... feel special... and THEN walk up to Central Park. We must've got up there around 8pm.

I really need to be more organised when it comes to baby-sitting - to use every single moment of the care, to be JUST THE TWO OF US. I'm so busy flapping and giving instructions, Keith's patiently explaining things, demonstrating swaddling techniques, that we've wasted half our 'away' time. Nuts! Oh well, I can only think that we'll get better at it. Perhaps what I should do is write down instructions, which I can just hand to the babysitter, rather than talk through it. So, you're probably wondering if we had a good evening, and the answer is yes. Keith took me to the Boathouse in Central Park. And yes, it has it's own gondola and gondoleer. There was a private party on that night, so they were ferrying out groups of about 6 - 8 people. It's a lovely setting next to the dark water, with the city reflected in it, over the trees. It was also strange to not be worrying about where the buggy was, if people were falling over it, whether Zack was going to wake up, etc. etc. We were home around 11:30ish I think. Ah, how things have changed. And yet, we had a wonderful bottle of Australian 2002 Shiraz, so maybe not everything has changed. We still enjoy a lovely bottle of wine together which is something we haven't done in a year.


On the day after my birthday Zack and I took the D train to Coney Island. I've been meaning to go for ages, and just never made the time. It's a bit like Brighton, except that it has real sand. It has a vintage theme park / funfair, and the roller-coaster dates back to the 1920's. We got ourselves a 'dog from Nathan's and took photos of the hassidic kids on a school outing.


Thursday was 'pack bags day' and back to JFK at 3:30pm. Our flight home went off smoothly and although Zack was a bit unsettled to start with, he went to sleep and I got some shut eye in the last 3 hours. I couldn't watch the films because the sound and picture quality was awful, and my screen kept switching off every 2 minutes. Ah, the joys of the basinette seats.

Well, it's all been good practice for flying to South Africa in November.
11 hours without Keith. I think it'll be OK.