Fly over Pangs of homesickness as I flew into London on Friday. I have always loved that feeling of waking on a plane to the rattle of the trolley with a cup of murky coffee plonked down in front of me and opening the shade to see the plane fly over London following the river down the east end and over the Millennium Dome, sorry The o2, stretching my neck to catch any kind of glimpse of The Valley, then over Canary Wharf and the mini-Manhattan that is now the Docklands. Seeing the Gherkin (now German owned) sparkle in the daylight and the Lloyds building, where I've spent so much of my adult life and then westward looking down on the flashy new apartment buildings on the river's edge at Wandsworth. A good view of the new Wembley's arch in the distance and finally Brentford's little ground before losing height and landing at Heathrow and being excited to get off the plane and drive to see friendly faces. This occasion like the last one being the people in the Charlton club shop, as I stopped off searching for stuff for my son and my office. Oh, I've become such a tourist.

Of course the awful traffic at the Blackwell Tunnel was a crash back to earth as was the rain that hit the windscreen but with every passing Charlton game increasing the pressure in my head of where my future lies, my son, my green card application, my job and the nice life I have built for myself in Chicago all assemble in my brain to create a chaotic and surreal picture of my future.  ¶ 01:45