Everything falls into place at the last minute. I stuff my remaining stuff into the two out of three suitcases which still have space and Jaffa drives me to the airport. “Are you excited?” asks Kerrie as I head for the door. “I haven’t really had time to get excited,” I reply. “I’ve been too busy.” It’s true. My Laura is waiting for me, three and a half thousand miles away. I must be going.

Gatwick is a fair distance away and it’s kind of Jaffa to be driving me. On the way to the airport, he asks if there are maple trees in Michigan. I have no idea. Probably. I guess that’s where maple syrup comes from, although by what process, I am completely in the dark. The drive to the airport takes two hours. Plenty of time to speculate on the origins of sauces.

We pull up at Gatwick around 10.45 and I sign over the car to Jaffa, hand him a paying in slip for my bank account and say, “Au revoir!” The car is his. Then I manoeuvre three suitcases, a full-sized A2 portfolio, a laptop and a bag of sweets that Kerrie has thoughtfully provided over to the NorthWest check-in.

“Can I take this on as hand luggage?” I point to the smallest of the cases, which is full of computer accessories. “Sure,” says the clerk perkily. She’s not so perky about the largest suitcase. 41 kilos. I can barely lift it on to the scales. “Um, could you transfer something from that bag to the other one? There’s a weight limit of 32 kilos.”

So there I am at 11am on a Friday morning, two suitcases open by the check-in counter at Gatwick Airport, trying to shuffle film cans and clothing and personal effects around. I’m wearing my ski jacket and a sweater over my T-shirt because, well, they couldn’t go anywhere else. The sweat is pouring off me. I take off the jacket. I’m going to be a joy to sit next to on an eight hour flight. This thought just makes me sweat more.

Eventually, somehow I juggle everything so that the largest case comes in at 31.5 kilos and the other case is okay. Somehow I’ve created a new bag in the process which gives me way too much hand luggage. The middle case, old and cardboardy, looks as if it’s about to burst and spill it’s guts over the conveyer. I’m beyond caring.

“Can I put my portfolio in the hold?” “Well, you can–but there’s a hundred and ten dollar excess baggage charge for a third bag. The plane’s pretty empty, though, so you should be alright with it in the cabin.” And that’s how I end up with four pieces of hand luggage, plus the bag of sweets, which I have no intention of giving up.

Amazingly, no one bats an eyelid as I take all this through the departure lounge. They do stop the small blue case though. I see them X-ray it twice. Must be all the computer gear, wires, wireless networking hub, webcam and other gubbins looking like a bomb. Security get me to open it up. They rummage around. They find… a pair of nose hair clippers. And they confiscate them. Bizarre.

They don’t find a metal letter opener with a serrated blade or a pair of nail clippers. Don’t we all feel a lot more secure now, eh? Safe from the threat of short nostril hairs.

NorthWest flight 31 on October 31 is uneventful. It is, as the perky check-in lady noted, half-empty. My excess hand luggage gets distributed around the cabin and I snag myself a row of five empty seats but am thwarted at the eleventh hour when a large woman ambles up the aisle with a seatbelt extender. Still, she’s friendly enough. Apparently she has M.E. and two broken legs. I give her some of Kerrie’s candy and she chats incessantly about her husband in the UK, her M.E., her house in the US…

In-flight movie is The Italian Job which turns out to actually be pretty good, not a remake at all, just a few character names the same. An homage. Not bad. I get a couple of hours sleep and finish reading Children Of Dune, one of the two books I have on the go at the moment. Finishing this one is symbolic for me because Leto II embarks on the Golden Path at the end. I have my own Secher Nbiw to begin.

Extender-belt woman is snoozing across the three empty seats beside me. This is okay. It’s better than her talking to me and stopping me reading, I figure. At the end of the flight, an attendant with a huge spider on the side of his head lets her know he’ll be getting her a wheelchair and the cabin crew wish us Happy Halloween.

“Y’know, I’m half tempted to give you my email address,” says my seat-row companion, “It was so nice talking to you.” Ha, that extra clause gets me out. “It was nice talking to you too. I hope everything goes well in Champaign with the house.” And, now the rest of the passengers have left, I head off to collect my various bags.

Nice thing about an empty flight: no line at the immigration desk. I show the guy my papers and he looks through them. “What’s your fiancee’s name?” he asks. “Have you met her?” I list the times and laugh at the question. “Well, you’d be surprised how many haven’t,” he says. He gives me form I-94 to complete and then waves me on through.

I am now a US resident, entitled to pay tax but not to vote. Sweet irony. Can I work? No one seems to know.

Outside the airport, it’s 72 degrees. A familiar blue Honda pulls up and Trinity steps out. The smile on my face is indescribable. This woman pleases me beyond measure. We stack her car up high with my luggage and head for home.

A short time later, I am carving pumpkins on the porch and small children are appearing with bags laden with candy under the watchful eyes of their parents at the kerbside. Having a pumpkin lit means your house welcomes trick or treaters. This is all new to me, these customs only partially grasped in the UK. Trick or treaters are all done by about 8am and the adults come out after nine.

My pumpkins grin manically as we head off to walk the nighttime streets of Ann Arbor. I am now attired as Agent Smith and checking out my new neighbourhood through stylish sunglasses. This is good. Laura is beside me, clueing me in on what’s going on, and we get admiring glasses from the ghouls and goblins.

Students are guarding the Diag from arch football rivals Michigan State–apparently an excuse to sit in the middle of campus on sofas while drinking beer–and a group of girls insults Oregon by appearing dressed as their college team. Assorted cowboys, cowgirls, hippies, TV and movie characters go by, including at least two Velmas from Scooby Doo. It is all bizarre.

I am happy. Happy happy Halloween.