At half past one, US time, yesterday morning, five hours after we were meant to be in the air, I thought I might not be here now. Earlier, just as we were about to take off, a warning light had come on in the cockpit, and the engineers couldn’t locate the problem. They’d stripped, then rebuilt the engine and were about to test it. ‘We’re going to give it a try,’ the pilot said. ‘And if it works, we’ll be leaving in 45 minutes. Otherwise, we’re not going anywhere tonight.’ The rest you can work out. Earlier in the day, Georgina and I went shopping (like the hat?) then took the subway to Harlem, where we walked round for a while in the glorious winter…