US TOUR 2007, DAY FIFTY-NINE:

It's over!

Fifty-nine days, more than twenty cities, tens of thousands of miles, and Peter May's World Tour of America Part II is finally at an end.

Now I can afford to lift my eyes to the finish line, and let my legs buckle just a little. Last night was our last in a strange bed. Tonight we board an airplane at JFK in New York and fly to Paris. Tomorrow night we shall sleep in our own bed for the first time in over two months.

Yesterday was a hectic last day in New York City. Signings at three bookstores at opposite ends of Manhattan - in Greenwich Village, Tribeca and the Upper East Side. That followed lunch with Ruth Cavin, my editor at St. Martin's Press, at a charming Spanish restaurant in 22nd street called Bolo. Ruth is the doyenne of New York editors. She is eighty-eight years old and still going strong. She is a delightful lady, sharp and observant, with dark, twinkling eyes.

St. Martin's Press, one of the biggest publishing houses in the States, is based in the nearby Flatiron building - so-called because it is built in the gushet (or triangle) between converging roads.

We walked from there, La Patronne et moi, down into Greenwich Village, then ventured further into the labyrinthine network of subway tunnels that so characterises transport in this huge city, navigating our way south, then north and east, for a meeting with my agent, Emma Sweeney, before the final booksigning of the tour at the Black Orchid.

Then Korean barbecue in Little Korea, and a smiling Korean waitress. When we asked for two vodka tonics and a couple of glasses of red wine, she tipped her head to one side and said, "Oh, you like to drink!"

Actually, I think we earned it.

Nothing more to be done. Nothing more to be said.

It's over!