8 Jan

The day started well when Sacha very kindly picked us up to take us to the airport. A minor glitch when I realised I had left our gift card for Olives restaurant behind, but as we were still in Chiswick, it was easy to turn round and go back in for it. Left a million notes on kitten-tips for Andrew who is house and Yoko-sitting in our absence.

When we got to the airport, we played the honeymoon card to try to change our rubbish seats on the plane. Sadly economy was totally full, so we couldn't, but then Virgin very kindly offered us a half-price upgrade to premium economy, which was wonderful. Huge seats, tons of leg-room, champagne, menu choices and no-one sitting in front of us. James read his book ('Everyday Survival', which I gave him for Christmas) the whole way here. I took the opportunity to watch movies that no one else would ever watch with me. 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist' had a good premise, but was not good, and certainly nowhere near the standard of 'Juno' for Michael Cera. 'The Women' was truly terrible and made me realise that I pretty much hate all films with Meg Ryan in them. Finally, 'The Duchess' was pretty good. I like Ralph Fiennes playing it mean, and Keira Knightley was almost good enough for me to forgive the horror that was her version of 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Anyway, once we arrived we took a cab to our apartment. Much to James' delight, the cab was yellow and the taxi driver was grumpy. So far, so New York. We were met at the apartment and shown around before being left to our own devices. The apartment is lovely. It's on the 8th floor of a building called The Atrium in Bleecker Street. It has long thin windows with an amazing view - we can see the Empire State Building from the bedroom, which is fabulous. We went out to the very nearby Deborah restaurant, which is one of my favourite places in NYC, and it didn't disappoint. James had a spicy seafood bouillabaisse and I had the BBQ half glazed duck with spicy sweet potato mash. Both dishes were absolutely stunning, and the service was super-friendly and just what James had imagined it might be. We didn't really have room for dessert, but ordered the red velvet cake with frosting anyway, and it was so delicious that it soon disappeared too. 

We were going to try and stay up longer, but by 9.30pm we were both so tired that we just crashed out. Will take pictures and add them as I go along...