Arrival

I am not quite sure what day it is, to be honest, as I get woken up by the air hostess with the most-ess (big Mary Queen) and some orange juice. At least he's slightly politer than the Japanese bitch who last night, just as I was settling down to sleep, shouted "YOUWANNWATER?" and threw a bottle of Pennine Spring water at me. I was slightly groggy and stiff, as I had sat in the same position for most of the 13 hour journey and dozed a couple of times whilst trying to watch a couple of crap films. 

It was not business class. 

Thankfully I think the mother behind me fed her grizzling child some Night Nurse trifle, as it seemed to sleep for the whole journey, plus the guy next to me didn’t want to engage in any conversation (perhaps the fact that as soon as he sat down I looked at him, reached for my iPod and put my headphones in pointedly sort of gave him the indication that I was a miserable bastard traveller.

I am worrying about going through immigration and make a detour to Starbucks to use their wifi and try to get all my official papers from my work email account, which was immensely easier than trying to get internet access at Heathrow. I also buy my return ticket home, with a flexible fare so I can (and probably will) change it.

This detour has taken about an hour by the time I have found Starbucks, sorted out information and ticket buying etc and now, of course, I am imagining my luggage going round on the carousel suspiciously on it’s own, containing knives, drug-smuggling-concealing coffee, and I am just waiting for a series of announcements about an abandoned bag and the sound of a small explosion. 

Anyway, I get through immigration no problem and I wonder if the UK end were being over zealous, and onto find my baggage. My flight wasn't showing on any of the carousels and I realised that our plane had landed 2 hours ago and all luggage had long been collected. Oh brilliant, I thought, but after wandering about the baggage hall for a while I saw my suitcase amongst the ‘abandoned-soon-to-be-exploded’ pile and retrieved it, walked as casually as I could through the Nothing to Declare channel, and out of the airport.

I'd made it!