I Remember When
There's a huge billboard hoarding on the left hand side of the M4 coming into London with a photo of a young man in jeans showing half his arse crack, with the words "Abercrombie and Fitch. Jermyn Street". Aside from the mildly diverting arse, I find this ad sad for a couple of reasons.
One is that it doesn't really jibe with the mental image of Jermyn Street trade that I'd like to hang on to - handmade shirts and bespoke gentlemen's tailoring, backed up by a couple of shops that still sell cutthroat razors and will also still give you a shave with one.
The second is that when I first discovered A and F via their South Street Seaport store in Manhattan back in the early 90s, it was full of stuff that I loved, and that I could probably still wear today ('classic' would probably be the word) - for a good few years their 'Big Oxford' shirt was my default casual shirt. Now, it's full of 'sk8er boy' stuff that's not only all targeted at people twenty five years younger than me, but at people twenty five years younger than me with twenty eight inch waists. Like the arse-flashing juvenile on the poster.
Oh god. I'm turning into an old man, aren't I?
Speaking Of Driving In America
Before we went away, I waxed lyrical about my TomTom, and noted that I'd downloaded the Southeastern US maps to help us get around over there; hoping that it would all work.
As it happens, it worked brilliantly - we never had to refer to a printed map once, and apart from a few points at freeway intersections where TomTom clearly didn't understand that off ramps had both left and right turn options at their heads (TomTom: "Turn right, then, do a U-turn." Us: "Or alternatively... turn left?"), we were bang on getting everywhere we needed to. Also, in a marked improvement from the UK, the estimates of how long a particular journey would take were always amazingly accurate. At one point we did a four hour trip and the ETA didn't fluctuate more than five minutes each way from the original estimate at any stage.
The minor drama that did arise was a complete shutdown for no apparent reason as we approached the airport for the flight home. Nothing we did either there or when we got home could bring it back to life, and then a couple of days later when I hit the power button on the offchance, it was suddenly and inexplicably revived.
Anyway - TomTom rules.
Something About The Holiday
At last!
So, well over a week later, I'm finally starting to cover some of what we did.
First off is worth noting that we got a freebie upgrade from Virgin Atlantic, so our outbound journey was in their lovely Upper Class cabin, which got the trip off to a great start as far as I was concerned, though the fact I was driving at the other end was a bit of a bugger with regard to getting a few relaxing sniffters down me at the bar.
Speaking of driving - I mentioned a few weeks ago that we'd hired a Mustang Convertible, and the gleaming white number that was waiting for us exceeded all expectations.
The hotel (this one) in South Beach was very nice, though perhaps a little on the sniffy side, and fetaured the rather odd detail of a large cabinet of haircare and 'intimate' products with price list in the bathroom. On our first evening there though, we discovered the restaurant attached to the hotel (8 1/2), which was a massive hit. We had two dinners and a lunch there during the three days of our Miami sojourn 
The first full day, we set out early to drive down through the Florida Keys to Key West. We'd been warned that we were just tipping into the start of Spring Break season, and we were a little worried about what Key West would be like. The drive (with the top inadvisedly down - The Mrs ended up with a nasty burned patch on his shoulder) was brilliant - once you're away from Miami and certainly between the more developed spots, the drive along Route 1 is just fantastic.
And rather than Key West being swamped with rowdy Spring Breakers, it was wonderful. Full of character, great architecture, friendly people and okay, quite a lot of tourists, but in a very manageable way. We decided we wanted to live there.
But then, we decide that about almost everywhere we ever visit.
More anon.
So I Lied
Catching up over the weekend should have been easy - we did almost NOTHING on Sunday - but 'twas not to be.
However, wasting days of weekends is something that will have to become a thing of the past pretty rapidly. I've sold my flat (or at least accepted an offer on it), and so I'm going to have to start applying serious thought to getting my stuff out of it.
In that same vein, one thing I did do on Sunday was trawl some estate agents, both online and in the real world. And one thing I can categorically say is that some people shouldn't be allowed to decorate their own homes.
Quiet Week
In blogging terms that is. In real life, exactly the opposite, hence the quietude.
But I'm planning on getting caught up over the weekend.
In the meantime, I see that John Inman and Captain America both died in the same week.
Spooky.
We’re Back
And we had a great time. Slightly against expectations (I mean, obviously you don't go on holiday expecting it to be crap, but equally we didn't go away this time expecting it to out-do some previous trips), it was probably the best holiday we've had. We mixed simple exploration with 'activities' (the Space Center, Universal Orlando), and complete do-nothing downtime, and it all came together into a brilliant package.
I'll talk a bit about some specifics over the next few days, but in the meantime - hello again Blighty.
Holiday Blog 2
I should point out that these little works of art are all the work of My Beloved.