We spent a few days on Cape Cod, staying in an Air B&B run by an interesting guy who looked a little too much like a serial killer for my liking. Still, we needed a room at short notice and he had one (serial killers will always make room for one more.)

Please note I am not saying that he was a serial killer. I’m sure he probably wasn’t. Not even a bit. At least, I have no reason to suspect that he was: I’m just saying he did have that sort of look about him. The sort of look that means you do NOT turn your back on him and that Ella and I always tried to make sure we were either side of him so that if he went for one the other could escape.

Apart from his day job in the healing profession (obviously wants to give something back) in his spare time he played in an incredibly unlikely looking band and invited us along to watch them on our first evening. The venue was a small bar on the beach and we spent the night eating excellent local chowder and talking for the locals. I say for, rather than to cos they lurrrved our accents and kept getting us to say stuff.

We returned to our room late leaving our host playing mellow jazz and I wondered about sleeping in the chair and putting pillows in the bed so it looked like we were there which might buy us a valuable few seconds of confusion if he rushed in and we needed to escape.

We made it through the night un-killed and next day, as we drove up to the top of the peninsular we passed a sign for a drive in movie theatre. The place looked exactly like it should look. A huge field with an old style diner stuck in the middle of it and rows of original 1950s poles and speakers as far as the eye could see. A wellying great big screen gave a pretty good indication of where you should be pointed towards – – and it was $7 for a double bill! That would be our evening sorted.

How could we not.

It started after dark with Jurassic World, followed by San Andreas. You can’t get much more All-American than those. We arrived about an hour before kick-off and pulled up in a bay about 3 rows from the front. The field was already filling up and, although this was a Monday evening we ended with several hundred cars and pickups by the time the films started. People were having barbecues behind their cars, picnics all over the place – many vehicles were pointing away from the screen with tailgates open and people lying in the back. It looked, felt, smelt, sounded just exactly as you’d hope it would and if Sandy Olsson and Danny Zuko had skipped round the corner belting out “You’re the one that I want” it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

The national anthem exploded through the speakers and all around people instantly stood up. Quite a few of them banged their heads on car roofs but once they’d realised their error and got out of the cars all around were hands thrust across chests and lusty singing filling the night air. It was great – and let’s face it, they do have a far better anthem than us so why not.

I loved the fact that in between the two films when we all piled in to the fast-food booth to stock up on snacks I found that they only served two sorts of popcorn: plain or salted. They didn’t serve sweet, the lady told me, as it was less healthy for you. So far so laudable. What they do have however, at the end of the counter, was a massive container of syrup with a tap at the bottom where people were taking their plain popcorn and covering it with rivers of golden goo. That has my seal of approval. Unsweetened popcorn is a waste of space.

At the end of San Andreas, which is basically a film about an earthquake managing to destroy everything on the West Coast of America except Dwayne Johnson’s family they, and a few other survivors are wandering up a hill away from the devastation and one of them asks “What do we do now?” and Dwayne stoically replies “We rebuild!” and from the pick-up truck next to us the dramatic stillness is rent by a guy shouting “Yeah! Yeah! That’s why they call us Ameri-CANS”.

Cue car horns.

I love Americans. They’re just so…. American.

Awaiting nightfall.