Another 'accidental' trip, like the one to Paris earlier in 2009.

Linda asked us for a favour - get her and Holly to Heathrow for 6am on 18th December, then pick her up at 8am on 22nd. Alternatively, we could join them on the trip to New York.

Having listened to Linda and others who'd been there, we had a vague intention of going at some point, but had never got round to it. This 'offer' bounced us into it, thankfully.

Travel was the first problem. We went to the travel agent first thing the next morning, but economy on the flight was full so we had to upgrade, and obviously upgrade Linda & Holly as well. It was great, but has spoiled us all for future flights.

We just dodged the bad weather in the UK. We stayed overnight at Heathrow, and there was 4" of snow the next morning. This made our flight about 2 hours late.

New York was really cold, sometimes -5^oC. There was about 9" of snow on our second day - lovely to see, but it made walking a bit difficult, and there were no ferries to the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. Other than that we had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back.

Linda & Holly had gone for the shopping, so we went sightseeing in the day and met up in the evenings. As usual it was great to have advice from someone who'd been before