A NEW HANDBAG AT LAX
We took our leave of that splendid hotel room, waved goodbye to Las Vegas and hopped on the forty five minute plane journey to Los Angeles.
I love LAX airport because if you stand still for a moment all human life passes you by. It was in a moment of reflection that into my field of vision appeared the most gorgeous handbag that I had ever seen.
This was a proper handbag that Audrey Hepburn would have worn perched on her arm as she went about her day. It was a darling, dainty handbag to hold a lipstick, tiny purse and tissues. Wrong for me on every level as I needed room for a computer, children’s toys, chocolate, reams of paper and pens, a huge bunch of keys, two purses and three pairs of glasses.
Unsuitable for the real me but perfect for my imaginary me who was always perfectly turned out, even tempered and graceful. With constant bon mots falling from her perfectly arranged lips that always had just the right amount of lipstick on.
The only quote of Audrey Hepburn’s that came into my mind then was “Happiness is health and a short term memory. “I liked the health bit but was not sure about a short term memory as it would not be any good in my line of work.
My husband found me whilst the perfect cream bag was being wrapped perfectly in copious amounts of matching tissue. He grabbed my hand and yelled “This plane is going to go without us.”
I smiled my thanks grabbed my card and treasured handbag. As I began to run like the wind, I could saw I swear I saw Audrey smiling from a distance.
We arrived back in UK and after a visit with the family in England made our way back to get the plane to Alicante airport. We picked up the car and made our way home in the sunshine and I was glad had another week off work
.We had spent the most wonderful couple of weeks and I wanted to be able to remember it all at my leisure.

Extract from The Lotus Generation due out December 2014