The thing about travelling independently is that you can't always control what's going on around you and what's affecting you. Our journey to Manchester Airport was relatively easy, but once we got to New York things started to go pear-shaped.The weather was really bad (high winds and rain) and so after 2 interesting failed attempts at crashing at JFK Airport the pilot decided to take us to Philadelphia instead, where we landed safely. We then sat for 3 hours while we refuelled and Air Traffic Control worked out a way to get us back to New York. Since the passengers were mostly British, we just sat there without complaint. But the crew were apologetic, and I don't suppose you can blame the Americans for everything.

Finally we got back to New York 5 hours later than expected. We were supposed to give the shipping guys a call when we landed and they were going to come and get us from the airport and bring us to Foxtrot. We tried to contact them but there was no-one left in the office, so we hurriedly had to arrange a motel for the night. We managed to choose the most kennel-like on the list supplied by the most un-welcoming Welcome Team at the airport, but since all the familiar hotel chains were fully booked, we had no option. Any bed was better than none at this point.

The only good thing going for the JFK Inn was that they provided a free shuttle bus from the hotel to the arrivals point. So we piled aboard for the 10-minute journey. The receptionist, Dorothy, couldn't have been more helpful but the place was a nightmare - noisy, dirty, cracked tiling, peeling paintwork and well past its best. But we were so tired it didn't matter.

At least for £100 a night it came with breakfast, which Bob couldn't eat as it was mostly bread and pastries. He managed to put his foot through the toilet seat lid, and cut his foot which gave us a well-needed hysterical laugh. We finally contacted the shipping company who had no idea where Foxtrot was, which wasn't a good start.

We walked 5 and 1/2 mile to a slightly cheaper motel in a fairly pleasant place called Lynbrook, and which was nearer the shipping company warehouse that we'd used last time we were here with the bikes. It had free wi-fi so we were able to contact the shipping company via email. Unfortunately when we got an update from them, it wasn't what we wanted to hear.

U.S.Customs had decided to clamp down on any container that had "personal belongings" as part of its manifest, and chose our container at random. This means that we have to let Customs basically 'strip search' the container, and then pay around £700 for the privilege of getting it back (assuming they let us have it back!).
You can imagine how peeved we are by this time - we'd already delayed our departure from Sheffield by 4 days to allow them time to sort themselves out, and today is a week later and we're no further forward. And we only bought one change of clothes with us as we were expecting to have Foxtrot back a lot quicker - fortunately we both smell as bad as each other, and at least the shower is hot.

So we're stuck in a £80-a-night motel room in New York, with no sign of movement just yet, wasting valuable time and money.

Oh, and on top of this, my emails wouldn't work because I couldn't provide enough information about who I was, and how the addresses were set up 6 years ago etc - Windows 10, Outlook and Hotmail have conspired against me yet again. Everything is so easy when you're sat at home with scraps of paper that you wrote stuff on - but far more difficult when you're not!

So if you need to contact us, use either the email robertjoldfield[at]gmail[dot]com, or zookrider1[at]hotmail[dot]com please. Not the oldfields_atw one - that's one we can't get into.

We're currently doing the old adventurer thing of 'hurry up and wait'.