" You won't know how to use one of these if you've not been in a car since 1958".
Anyway, all had gone according to plan and just as I allowed myself to breathe out a huge sigh of relief that I hadn't after all, made the biggest journey plan bungle of the year, when we discovered that Mike's backpack wasn't on the baggage carousel. I made light of it along with the baggage handler manager, Carlos. We didn't know the full address of our destination, just the house name and I made a feeble joke about the bag having potentially gone astray at any point between Fort Myers and Casa Magnolias. However, he was confident and said we should ring after the next, and last flight arrived and he would put it in a taxi. I remained positive and flippant about the issue until I remembered that half my gear was in there along with all of Mike's.
It seems the plane waited for us passengers in Houston but not long enough for Mike's bag. It arrived at the house in time for us to get ready to go out for New Years' Eve. Fortified by a nap and copious amounts of strong coffee we proceeded to attend 4 parties and had a restaurant meal out. There is a sizeable gay community in PV and at one point I proved the opposite to the 'Only Gay in the Village' as the 'Only Straight Female in the Bistro'. At midnight we watched simultaneous firework displays around the bay from a penthouse balcony in town that provided a panoramic view. We finally flopped into bed at 4am, our latest night in years. Great fun, lovely to see Mark and Ivan again and meet some of their friends.