Leaving home

So on Christmas Day I headed down to the airport after a nice family Christmas lunch to catch my plane to Heathrow. I couldn't believe what had happened to the airport. I used to think we had the nicest terminal around but now all the carpets have been ripped up in favour of cheap tiles and the duty free looks like it has been dipped in Franklins juice before being installed in the departure section.

Once on Singapore airlines the air hostess graciously told me that my seat was taken by a couple who insisted they should sit together because "Well, we're together". Now I didn't book my seat nor did I actually care where I was sitting but at that moment I stuck at my chest and said "Actually I do want to sit in the seat I was allocated". I don't know why it annoyed me, maybe because I was an usher for years, or because I worried about being pushed around this early into my trip, needless to say the bloke next to them moved and I felt triumphant in my window seat ... till about 5 hours in when I became suddenly ill.

With just two hours left till Singapore I meditated the rest of the way and managed to avoid getting up to go to the bathroom. I felt awkward asking the people next to me to me to get up and down constantly when we had already had the seat swapping incident. Finally Singapore came into view looking like a darkly sparkly jewel and after many polite "no, no after you" I spent quite some time getting to know the Singapore toilets of the entire airport. The rumors are true they are quite nice. There are also lovely prayer rooms which I thought about using to ask Jesus to intervene and stop my chunder train. He must have listened because suddenly I was okay.

Going from Australia to Singapore was a nightmare - it was packed, the turbulence was frightening and the passengers were seat stealers. Going from Singapore to Heathrow was awesome!

I got into my seat and waited for the other passengers who would be seated next to me. They never came. In fact the entire plane had about one person to each row of seats. We excitedly looked around at each other knowing what this meant and as soon as the seat belt sign went off everyone rushed around finding an empty bank of seats, throwing up all the arm rest and lying across three or four chairs. I slept for nine hours - maybe the most anyone has managed to sleep on an economy class flight.

Finally after 13 hours of air travel bliss I got a glimpse of London by night. Where Singapore was intricate, organised and perfectly manicured from it's aerial view London looked like a mass of tangled gold chains. That's okay though as it is London town and it has other redeeming features.

I grabbed my bags, hurried through customs, saw Warren waiting for me, got in the car to Swindon.



Singapore aerial view.



London aerial view.