Goodbye London, Hello America

We got it! We got the Green Card! I aced the test. Fully prepared for a full Mr and Mrs-style quiz, I was disappointed only to be asked a couple of questions about TLOML’s family – where they live, how many siblings he has, that kind of thing. Easy.

Perhaps TLOML didn’t share my confidence, as he actually stepped forward to answer the first question himself.

‘Where in the States is your husband from?’ asked the officer.

‘Well, I’m originally from –’ TLOML began, until I interrupted him with a sharp dig in the ribs.

‘I think the question is for me, darling’, I said.

The officer chuckled and I think pretty much got his big ‘DEFINITELY MARRIED’ stamp out there and then. It didn’t even matter if I got the answer right, there was something in the way I cut my husband down that demonstrated beautifully the strength of our relationship. (Also I suspect having your baby with you helps. Plenty of people get married just for a visa, but I don’t think anyone goes through pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood to secure a Green Card.)

We celebrated with an expensive Mayfair hotel bar lunch. Lady P especially enjoyed depositing mashed up banana and semi-masticated breadsticks on their leather chairs and clean carpet. And then we hit the road north, before they could issue us a bill for carpet cleaning, leaving London for the last time until we fly out to LA.

Fittingly our last weekend in London was spent staying in my old manor, in Lady P’s godfather’s NW5 flat. So TLOML reignited his relationship with Chicken Shop and E.Mono, and we had a good afternoon with old friends at a quality NW5 boozer. I also managed to squeeze in a little drinkin’ and dancin’ with my Wondertwin at an old friend’s 40^th, in a brilliant old pub in Kensal Rise. On the way home she wrangled with the taxi driver to put Magic on, which reminded me, hazily, of many nights out in our misspent youth. All in all it was a very good reminiscipackage of a weekend.

Good job we got the Green Card. It would have been a bit embarrassing to have to tell everyone we said goodbye to that ‘we’re still here’. As it is we can fly out to LA in a couple of weeks feeling like we gave London a decent farewell.