Home soon....

...and I'm writing this hurriedly at EWTN while waiting for the car that will take me to the airport. It's all been fun - yesterday recorded a couple more programmes and then had time for some souvenir-shopping (bought some gloriously American things - pumpkin soap for Mother, and some sort of Blueberry Syrup for Jamie to have on his morning porridge).

Also had time to watch some American TV...golly there are some odd things out there. EWTN is a relief after seeing some of the dippy things on some other TV channels, especially the religious ones! One showed a big religious rally with lots of people waving American flags, and at first I thought it was all rather nice - jolly wholesome and so on - but then it all went political and there was a great deal of ranting and a chap told everyone they should 'expect great blessings' for having attended the rally and started to list lots of things the President should do on foreign policy because it was all in the Bible. It was quite enjoyable to watch in an odd sort of way, an Evelyn Waugh novel come to life.

But it's impossible to visit America and not be hugely touched by the other side of all this - the huge kindness, the generosity, the largeness of people's hearts. Americans give generously to charity - huge projects of all kinds simply funded out of people's gifts, large and small. They are neighbourly - and regard all sorts of people as neighbours, not just convenient ones. They cope with things. There is a cheeriness here which is - at present anyway - missing in Britain.