LHR to JhB

(a delayed post...)

The Evening Standard Final vendors and deadpan delivery piped through speakers on the Tube have stopped mocking me. No longer do I have to hear of ash clouds and airport closures – no, the skies have been declared open and one week late, to the minute, I boarded an aeroplane and skipped over the equator, to a Johannesburg I find unseasonably cold.
As is customary, the travelling itself was fine and the carrying of stuff was miserable. I opted for a wheelie bag this time as to not want to top myself by the time I arrived at Heathrow, but found my mood only marginally better than the last time I had to carry stuff. I bought books at the airport with grand plans to read on the plane, but as usual found myself napping on takeoff, eating the cheese and biscuits from the evening meal, watching a movie and then falling into restless slumber. The temperature on the plane was akin to high dry desert heat and it’s the first flight that I’ve ever managed to not shiver all the way through. On the flip side of that, my t-shirt was distinctly damp and I couldn’t help but think of those trips I used to take in the car when I was a kid, where I’d fall asleep and wake up with my face stuck to the leather seats. Needless to say, the glamour of travel has always been a near mythical beast. The best thing about the flight was managing to sleep through breakfast and thus escaping the waves of nausea those little tin foil boats of congealed egg and black pudding invariably inspire.

Highlights so far:
x1000 bottles of champagne.
Corlia and warwick’s birthday lunch at Nice in Parkhurst. A long lazy meal in beautiful surroundings, fillet steak, bone china tea cups, crystal flutes and cake, cake, cake.
Being woken up at 3am by the ruckus of the boys returning home and getting up to watch hours of shit TV with them.
Jacques de Savoy 2002 Cara
The frat house. I love these boys.

(A more up to date account to follow soon.)