Inpursuitof

‘This is nice’. Not words I thought I’d say about an airport. But, we’d arrived early for our flight from Chicago to Omaha, our hosts having left for work and the nanny trying her darndest to cajole extra ‘sweaters’ on to us, and we were sitting with our breakfast in a half empty departure lounge. It was nice.

A friend of mine said once that you have to enjoy the travelling as much as the travels ‘cause that’s a part of your holiday too. She’s right, of course, you pay from the moment you leave your front door to the moment you get back in annual leave, cash and time, yet so often we’re fixated on the destination. I’m not saying the thirty five minute queue to check luggage is as fun as thirty five minutes by the pool, but there are people to watch and, boy, are they miserable. And miserable is quite fun to look at, especially miserable mother-in-laws with their family. Airports are full of every shape and size of people, they are the great equalizer of rich and poor. Everyone has to go through the same schtick at security (unless you forget to take off half your jewellery like I did), wander amongst the duty free and the Starbucks and purchase 14 books in Smiths that they’ll never finish. If you can, get to the airport half an hour early and just sit in Departures. Sit and look.

Plus there’s the flying itself. Flying’s like being in a massive coach, or on a train, and I LOVE IT. I love being around all those people, all from a hundred places around the world having their own little thoughts and being the center of their own lives. I love all that humanity hurtling through the air, bound together for a few hours by a common destination. I’ll give up a couple inches of legroom for that any day.

1) Cass, Scott, Danny and Alex

2) Some Roald Dahl books

3) Some kids we played Freeze Tag with in the local park (NOT by ourselves, I hasten to say, with my girlfriend’s nephews)