Travel

It first hit us in the speedboat as Bill and I were crossing from Providenciales (Provo to locals) to Parrot Cay – the sweet pure air that smelled of sea salt mixed with a bit of banana and coconut! I closed my eyes and felt the freshest air I had ever experienced. The air will steal you away from anywhere! For us, it took us from Palm Beach to the Como Hotel and Resorts – the only hotel on the private three mile long Cay. I suppose the fact that the hotel staff picks you up at the airport, drives you to the private dock that takes you by boat to the Cay and your own villa where your luggage is awaiting you only adds to our gracious welcome.

The main hotel, situated on top of a hill, was decorated in British Colonial style and free of excessive ornament. White walls, natural woods and fabric in the choice of furnishings, the hotel – like the air outside – spoke of purity and freshness. Beside the hotel itself, there are beach villas and private homes that can be booked through the hotel. The further away from the refinements of the hotel the more private and rugged the landscape.

My mother phoned from Tjøme, the little island in the Oslo fjord that she calls home every June and July. She told me that the house was not too dusty, that the garden was overgrown but that a nice man was coming over to cut the lawn and trim the hedge so that she could see the ocean over it from her breakfast table. Of course, no-one had filled her fridge, so she had no milk, or tea, or bread, or jam. My aunt doesn't think of these things and I find it quite strange. I wonder if it is a cultural thing, or whether she doesn't think or whether she is just selfish. I wonder if my sister had made the long trip by boat and car all the way from England to spend six weeks with me on the island we grew up spending summers on since we were children, I could even imagine not greeting her with a full fridge and a vase of flowers on the table, a cup of tea, a glass of wine, a simple supper?

My mother can't walk very well but soldiers forth with her stick into the unknown and complains relatively little although I know she is often in pain. It is particularly cruel that someone so athletic would lose the proper use of her legs. She brings delicacies in her suitcases – food from Waitrose, eggs from the hens, wine, British tea bags – packed into her car for the long journey.

I become the biggest sports fan for whatever I am exposed to for the moment. Sort of a lucky combination of being a stewardess for a major airline and being able to travel the world for free has put me in a position to be in the right places at the right time. This week I will be absorbed in the World Baseball classic series as I am taking the USA team to Toronto. Two weeks ago it was golf at the AT&T tournament in Pebble Beach. 

Last summer I was in New York City. My flight got in so late that the only room the hotel had left was the Penthouse suite. I am sure they balked, giving it to me who was paying nothing. I got in the elevator and happily pressed the PH button. The other two guys in the elevator commented on how the heck I got that room, how was it, how did I get so lucky. Later on I wandered down to the free coffee station and ran into the same two guys. They said instead of having coffee that I should join them and their friends in the bar. So I did. They said they played golf and not until I looked up at the TV in the bar and saw one of them being interviewed on ESPN, did I realize they were 'real PGA golfers.'

Stuffed with dates, bloated with tea, and in the midst of a pitched battle about Israel’s right to exist, I blurted: "Look, I can’t have the discussion about the Canaanites, again!" (To wit: who was stomping around the Holy Land first, 3,500 years ago!) "Tell me the name of the great fish restaurant around here, Al, something you mentioned it earlier?"

It was New Year’s Eve – the Western one. Saudi Arabia uses the Hijra calendar, which is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian, in case you want to book ahead for next year. I had come to research a Hilary Mantel novel I’m adapting for a film. I was in Jeddah, on the Red Sea. There are two Saudi Arabias. The liberal progressive folks in Jeddah, and cities along the coast, known as the The Hijaz, who summer in Europe and Beruit, read the New York Times on line, whose kids go to schools abroad, decry the religious conservatives, and those in Riyadh, the capital, in the middle of the country and the Eastern Provinces. Blue states, red states.