Stuart turned 40 earlier this month and on his birthday I took him to the airport (he knew that) to fly away on holiday to Los Angeles (he did not know that).

I packed his bags for lovely mild weather (and hid his winter stuff so he would not know what was in the suitcase), checked in online, asked the Virgin Atlantic attendant not to mention the destination aloud when we dropped our bags, then asked the security staff to do the same. Everybody kindly complied, so Stuart only found out the destination at the gate when we boarded the plane:

The flight was good (we both love Virgin Atlantic), the movie selection was excellent and I got to watch A Single Man, Up, Precious and An Education. Loved them all.

We landed in LAX in the early evening, picked up the car I had booked, started Navigon on my iPhone (I had bought the turn-by-turn navigation for Western USA) and did not get a GPS lock. I wanted to just go, hopeful that it would eventually start, bu Stuart insisted we changed cars so we upgraded to a Mazda 6 with sat nav thingy (Hertz NeverLost) which turned out to work very well.

We drove to Le Parc Suites Hotel in West Hollywood, got our bags out and noticed we had left my backpack in the first hired car. Tried and failed to get hold of Hertz so drove back to the airport and realised on the way that my laptop was in the bag. I had no idea how I managed to keep calm and drive on that 7-lane freeway!

We picked up the bag from Hertz Lost and Found (laptop still in it) and drove back to the hotel, checked in and went to bed, crisis averted and hoping for a little less excitement during the rest of the holiday.