The Journey Home

There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home! I'm clicking my heels together many more than the prescribed bare minimum three clicks, but it's still not working! If only it was that simple. Instead, I started my journey a good 19 hours ago. You see, I didn't put faith in the ability of Heathrow to effectively shuttle passengers through customs and so on, so I gave myself a good 3 hours leeway at the airport. This plan backfired somewhat, and after a hearty meal at an Irish Airport pub, I still had a good 2 hours to while away before boarding. Now as I'm sure you'd agree, airports aren't the most conducive to time-whiling-away. Partly due to the ear-piercing squeal which is the Heathrow public announcement sound effect. Partly due to the brain function impeding, odourless gas which they release into the air in airports. Now this makes any attempts at concentration longer than the time taken to open my book to the current page impossible. So I have become quite adept at opening and closing my book to page 147.

Well, after whittling away the hours, I decided it was soon enough before boarding to take a swig of my cough medicine to ensure a cough free flight to Hong Kong (free from coughing myself that is - you'd be hard pressed to board a flight full of Hong Kongers without having at least a handful of old chinese ladies attempting to cough up their spleen onto your shoulder). Reading the bottle label I was not really all that surprised to see that it may cause drowsiness, as just about everything from baby food to suncream may cause drowsiness these days. So sitting down in my emergency exit seat, provided with ample leg space, I was ready to knuckle down to a good few hours and maybe a film or two, before restless, broken sleep would perhaps overtake me. So you can imagine my surprise, when alerted by a cool patch of drool spreading over my left shoulder, I awoke to find the plane air born and climbing up through the clouds. What is in this medicine! Incredible. I didn't even recall taxiing out, or taking off. Well I proceeded to make the fateful decision to accept a bit of dinner, despite the fact I wasn't too hungry (you see I suffer from hungrophobia - terrified I will become hungry without easy access to food), certain I would regain this drug induced slumber immediately afterwards. A tip to air travellers in hindsight - once you accomplish the feat of falling asleep - DO NOT SURRENDER IT FOR ANYTHING! Not for conversation, not for money, and definitely not for lukewarm doggy plane food!