hi Carol
I hope all went well !
Love Allisons recommendations

I think the best thing is to applaud your experience and realise that everything is useful to us. I found travelling a challenge for years but each experience built on top

I think my best thing in the beginning - because going through time zones - was to forget convention and eat by the clock, so 5 hours between, regardless

I carry macadamia nuts, almonds, some parmesan to add as a top up ( it seems to keep happily) a foil pouch of salmon and a tin of sardines. I don't care about offending anyone with stinky sardines babybel cheese being wrapped is handy. Often have had a cooked jacket potato as well as more transportable than you think. Crackers and oatcakes also pretty portable. Most of the time I don't need them, but they are *there* I currently have a very well travelled tin of sardines - they are long shelf life so I don't even unpack them, one lives in the suitcase. I have an out of date baby food sweet potato jar from USA which I cant bear to throw out its a souvenir. You cant get that here.

And in handbag, two sturdy plastic spoons, because they can go on planes happily. All my family save me their plastic spoons for my drawer in the kitchen ( that we probably all have )

gradually I learnt the chain restaurants that are friendly for me if I'm out and about, and often if we are going some where new, we look them up and google map them as a back up..... same with supermarkets. google map is the most amazing thing