My Manchester/JFK flight was 2:30, so working backward, it made sense to catch the 10:00 199 bus, and I had to be out of the cottage by then anyway. I’d sent a message to host Tiffany explaining to her what I was going to do as cleanup, and also apologizing that I’d broken the adorable ‘duck taking a bath in a bathtub’ figurine in the bathroom. (one of ten thousand cute figurines in the cottage) She was cool with it, told me to leave the keys in the lockbox.

I had to finish packing, which wasn’t a big deal – going home, you kind of just throw everything in there – but had to get both suitcases down the narrow stairs next. (I actually moved the giant vase of flowers off the little landing, because I just knew it would go the way of the bathtub duck if I didn’t.) Stripped the bed, made sure the used towels were in an obvious location. Emptied the trash and put the trash and recycling out on the back porch. Finished off the last of the crumpets and got to the end of the peanut butter jar, perfect timing. Still had a ton of raisins left, so I just left them behind. Dumped the rest of the soda and seltzer so the fridge was empty. Did I forget one last ice cream bar in the freezer? No, I think I ate them all (there were only three, stop it). Reset the cute little place as much as I could, then wheeled the suitcases and schlepped the backpack out the door.

Locked both doors, then I had to figure out the lockbox again, and how to relock it – this was a little more annoying than it could have been, as it was mounted on the short wall by the gate, right at the bottom, and I had to crouch down and read the teeny little numbers. But I got it done, and then pushed all my stuff up the hill (the most gentle way) to the bus stop.

The bus finishes and starts its route at the top of the high street, so I got to glare at the bus across the street until the driver’s break was over and she wheeled the bus around through the Sainsbury’s parking lot to our stop. On with the luggages. Again, lucky that no one with a wheelchair came on, because the other side with the other handicapped ‘fold up’ seats was taken up by a stroller.

Was happy to just sit there for an hour and forty-five, as the countryside is lovely and you also just get to see all these little villages, which turn into more and more metropolitan areas as you get close to Stockport. A lady sat beside me and chatted with me for quite a while, she was very nice, but she did throw out one of those conversation starters that sounded like she was going to rail against immigrants, so I just let that sit there like a dead bug and we moved on.

Finally at the airport bus station. I waited for everyone else to get off, where of course some teenager said to his dad as they passed me, ‘boy, that’s a lot of luggage he has’, yeah, eff you, kid. Got off, I used the facilities and then realized I’d completely forgotten which terminal to go to and had to look it up on my phone. (Terminal 2, for Virgin Atlantic, for future reference) Trundle trundle trundle the wheeled suitcases down the skyway tunnels, sometimes on motorized walkways, mostly not. No problems checking in (hallelujah, again always worried about weight and getting dinged for an overage) and going through security.

As with last time, they didn’t announce the gate of the flight until about an hour before boarding, but I managed to find a reasonable seat in a not-too-crowded area and just read and surfed the web until they did. I don’t think I got any meal while I was there, knew I’d be fed plenty on the plane.

Last year, for some reason, once they announced the gate, they were pretty much just letting people get on the plane right away, but this time they did the board by section thing so waited around for that. Again in the ‘middle class’, in the ‘middle of the plane’ part of the row between the two aisles. Oh yes, this plane only had 3 seats in the middle, not four, and it looked like all three would be filled. but our middle seatmate, who was not going to get off his phone, up and left and we never saw him again! I don’t know if he got an upgrade or what, but other guy and I had an empty middle seat to share dumping our stuff.

I don’t remember having any delays big enough to worry about, and now we’re in the air. The flight back of course is (a) not overnight and (b) longer than the flight there, so lots of time to kill, although I probably napped at some point. I had knitting and books and also watched part of the the Saturday Night Live movie (oh look, there’s Cousin Nick from Succession as Andy Kaufman!) and we had our big meal and later, our snack. They’d encouraged you to preselect your meal choice and I picked chicken masala or some such not-that-spicy Indian meal, and it was pretty good. The snack later was either kind of a tea with finger sandwiches, or little teeny chicken caesar wraps. I had plenty of sparkling wine. It was a nice, uneventful flight.

Oh, except I realized that if I bought some wifi, I could maybe actually watch the Festival awards ceremony in real time, and I did! (It was quite spotty with the connection, but I got most of it.) The Zoo was not adjudicated, unfortunately, but the big award Pinafore got was the “Runner Up” award, meaning ‘second-best show’ (which was awesome), and we actually got a cash prize for that. The only other award we won was “Best Female Voice” for Lauren, the same award she’d won two years ago. Which is fantastic, but also kind of missing the point, since Lauren is not only a great singer, but a great actress, a great comedian, and a lovely person. Ah well. We also got nominations for, but did not win: best male voice (Daniel as Boatswain and Chaz as Ralph), best chorus, and best director.

I did not get nominated as Best Musical Director and I remain disappointed by that. I guess it could have been political – I’ve won the award once and been nominated a second time, and maybe they just thought, ‘we like Eric, he doesn’t need any more headpats’. (But I do!) But I’m looking forward to reading the adjudicator’s comments to see if there was something he really didn’t like about the musical direction.

Landed early enough that they didn’t have a gate for us, and we sat on the tarmac for a bit. But then in and off. No problem getting the luggage. Last year, taking the same flight, I’d decided to get in the taxi line instead of summoning an Uber, and that had ended up with a long wait. So I decided to do the Uber and lo! they actually shuttled us from the terminal way way offsite to a special parking lot (for free, and with actually quite a lot of customer service, they were super nice). Summoning an Uber from there took all of 30 seconds and then it was the typical *sigh* cab ride home from JFK, which is always a mess of traffic.

And I was home, and the apartment looked fine, and there was no moth invasion. I took my stinky travel-yucky self over to the Mexican joint and had margaritas and something simple, like a quesadilla. And home and to bed.

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It was really a great experience. I’m still questioning how I could have done a better job with Pinafore (of course I could have, I just would like specifics), although I’ve watched the whole video twice now and musically, it’s just fine and even the errors were completely understandable with our short time with the orchestra, and they all were over and recovered from quickly. And a lot went really well.

I’m glad I got to finally delve into a score that I’ve come to admire more and more as the years have gone on. We G&S people have checklists and while I have not completed the canon, I have now conducted The Big Three (Pinafore, Pirates, Mikado). Seven all told. What’s left? I am desperate to MD Iolanthe, which I adore and (like Pinafore until this) I’ve never actually performed in a full production, even though I’ve sung all the roles I can in party settings and informal concerts. I’d also like a crack at MD’ing Yeomen and Ida, two scores I really admire. I’ve never MD’d Grand Duke or Utopia, and don’t care if I do. I’d love to conduct Trial in a full production with orchestra at some point, but those happen very rarely. And of course there’s Rose of Persia, sigh…

And the production experience for both shows was such a delight. This was a really successful year for Savoynet, and we all came out of it buzzing with energy and possibilities for the future.

THE END