Setting
off with all the anticipation of a 12 year old on their way to a Theme
Park, the journey had been one of predictable events. The train and the
transfer to the airport had gone well after the predictable mad panic
to pack and the search through the pockets of the bag for the hundredth
time, have I got my passport ?
Airports are a mixture of nostalgia, emotion and the bland. To the business commuter,it's another bloody day at the office and the worry of a meeting in Budapest. For the people in love, parting for a time and wondering whether the parting will seal their love since whilst absence is supposed to make the heart grow stronger, there is the doubt they might meet someone else whilst away from my influence. And then there's the holiday maker on a short leash and keen to make the most out of every minute.
People from all walks of life and persuasion pad around the Departure Lounge. The sign boards announcing the flights click over as the minutes roll into an hour or more and one seeks ways to pass the time. Eating and drinking, reading or simply watching.
I love to watch, trying to imagine where so and so is going and what for. Who does that group represent. Is that the chap you saw on TV a while back. The cleaners, the message carriers, the aircraft personnel with its flight deck hierarchy striding purposively for their plane, the careworn mothers, the squabbling children, the anticipation of reunion writ large.
As
the time trickles away it's time to face the security process which
seems ever more draconian each time you travel. As you strip down to
your underpants (it's coming), placing all your worldly possessions
into an open tray you fight the thought of picking up someone else's
tray and having an unintentional identity swap. Trousers barely
supported you shuffle forward, shoeless through the X-ray gate to sound
off the alarm because your old lucky penny is still in your pocket. How
women with wired bras ever got through to the plane is one of those
unanswered questions like Malaysia MH370 ! I can't imagine First Class
have to submit to this sort of humiliation but anyway, bin Laden must be
laughing in his unmarked grave at the ignominy he has caused so many
Kafur
Eventually,at long last the time arrives "will flight Vs300 please board at gate 12.
Joining the queue you wait to find your seat and struggle with the bag into the luggage compartment, "fasten your seat belts please". What will tomorrow bring ?
After sitting in the cramped tube for 12 hours, and now released into the warm tropical air of Delhi, part one of your trip over but wait a minute, there's a hold up on the M25 ( a wrecked plane on the runway in Kathmandu ) and all your plans are dashed.
As the old war time song goes, "Pick yourself up and dust yourself down" it's time to make new friends and test yourself under adversity. Think of those poor sods waiting to go "over the top" in World War One and you will see this as an opportunity, another notch on life's "experiences" belt
Airports are a mixture of nostalgia, emotion and the bland. To the business commuter,it's another bloody day at the office and the worry of a meeting in Budapest. For the people in love, parting for a time and wondering whether the parting will seal their love since whilst absence is supposed to make the heart grow stronger, there is the doubt they might meet someone else whilst away from my influence. And then there's the holiday maker on a short leash and keen to make the most out of every minute.
People from all walks of life and persuasion pad around the Departure Lounge. The sign boards announcing the flights click over as the minutes roll into an hour or more and one seeks ways to pass the time. Eating and drinking, reading or simply watching.
I love to watch, trying to imagine where so and so is going and what for. Who does that group represent. Is that the chap you saw on TV a while back. The cleaners, the message carriers, the aircraft personnel with its flight deck hierarchy striding purposively for their plane, the careworn mothers, the squabbling children, the anticipation of reunion writ large.
Eventually,at long last the time arrives "will flight Vs300 please board at gate 12.
Joining the queue you wait to find your seat and struggle with the bag into the luggage compartment, "fasten your seat belts please". What will tomorrow bring ?
After sitting in the cramped tube for 12 hours, and now released into the warm tropical air of Delhi, part one of your trip over but wait a minute, there's a hold up on the M25 ( a wrecked plane on the runway in Kathmandu ) and all your plans are dashed.
As the old war time song goes, "Pick yourself up and dust yourself down" it's time to make new friends and test yourself under adversity. Think of those poor sods waiting to go "over the top" in World War One and you will see this as an opportunity, another notch on life's "experiences" belt
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