Hairy, scary and vivid

Queuing for the security check at Los Angeles airport I was behind a girl with a baby buggy and two huge bags. She looked about twenty. I offered to help her with her luggage, and we got into conversation. She had a little brother who was nine, and who reads incessantly. 'Like, he reads a book in three-four days,' she said. 'I keep telling him - why y'all reading all those books all the time? Get outside and do sumthin.' She had a silver stud in her tongue, and it clicked against her teeth. Her bag felt like it was full of lead. I didn't tell her what I was doing in the US, and she didn't ask.

There were no events scheduled for the weekend, so I had arranged to fly to San Francisco on the Saturday morning. Northern California is stiff with Berkeleys, and I spent the weekend with family before doing two school talks and a book signing on the Monday. The kids were so keen and interested it made me think there must be something to this writing game after all. I arranged with their teachers that they would all draw pictures of 'The Null' – a nightmare beast who appears in the early chapters of the book. I awarded prizes for the best drawings, but so hairy, scary and vivid were the entries that choosing a winner was almost impossible. Afterwards I caught a late flight from Oakland airport, touching down in Chicago Midway at 2am.

It was warmer than I expected outside, but in Chicago hotels they take their air conditioning seriously. The hotel corridors were supernaturally cold, and I half expected to see the spirits of the dead sliding hollow-eyed out of the stripy wallpaper. I headed for my room in the hope of a more hospitable climate, but when I opened the door it was like stepping into a meat-locker. I could see my own breath. I threw the air conditioning into reverse, and while I waited for the temperature to rise to life-sustaining levels I kept myself warm by tossing the excess pillows from the bed. Upmarket hotels take pride in the number of pillows they can arrange on one bed, but I only have one head, so most of them have to go. I sometimes wonder how many ducks go naked to provide just one hotel with surplus pillows, and I think of our usual family holidays, which generally involve the cunning art of trying to sneak a family of seven into a single hotel room half the size of this one. Here we'd have three pillows each. The Irish were kings of the world at room-stuffing, at least until we were overtaken by the Chinese. They stack up, I believe.

I've also discovered the secret of dining in silver-service restaurants without feeling intimidated. It's very simple: always eat the garnish. All of it, including the flower. It's the last thing they expect you to do, and it keeps them on the defensive. Leave the prawns instead. It's far from prawns we were raised.

Speaking of silver service, I was drawn into McDonalds at the departure gate in Chicago O'Hare by a mysterious force called breakfast pancakes with syrup. Hot pancakes are a triumph of American civilisation. They understand sugar lows. On the bin where I emptied my tray there was an ad: Cholesterol and Blood Sugar Screening, $45.