Southampton

I am off to Southampton today to catch up with my lovely friends down there.  I sleep well then decide to snooze for a further 20 minutes, so indulgent of me.  I finally rise and kick off the day with door stop toast with butter and Manuka honey and several vats of decaff.  I jog for 20 minutes then hit the shower, manage to do something with the head, then head out to Starbucks and some me time.  I write a little, but it's not for publication, I just need to mull over the past couple of weeks and try to get some perspective on recent events.

I don't get home until 11.30ish and realise that J is picking me up for the airport at 12.45ish, I still have to have lunch, iron and pack.  Luckily it's soup and bread for lunch, I don't have much to iron or to pack, I have my weekend packing down to a fine art and can pretty much do it on auto pilot.

J is a little late, which is good today.  We head for the airport around 1pm and the traffic is kind and free flowing.  After a slight parking trauma, we park up and J insists on joining me for a coffee inside the airport.  It's lovely but I'm always a little antsy when I know the next thing I need to do is head for security.

I kiss J goodbye and make her promise to text me when she gets home.  There is a massive queue for security and it's hot, and slow moving.  The Polish man behind me is anxious to get to his flight and keeps knocking into me which is annoying and making me more hot.  After 30 minutes, I'm about 6 from the front of the queue when the Polish people behind explain that their gate closes in 10 minutes and could they jump the queue.  We all of course let them go, and at least I'm not being constantly bumped into for the remaining few minutes in the queue.  I look around the queue, the lady behind me until the queue splits in two, has been separated from her two friends who are about 12 people ahead, we chat a little, the man in front of me has an enormous rucksack on his back and I spot an old lady on her own and wonder where she's headed for.

After 35 minutes I get through security, I pick up a US Elle magazine as it has one of my hero's SJP on the cover and I purchase my traditional, pre-flight wine.  No sooner have I flipped through the mag and hurried my wine, than my flight is called. 

I make my way to gate 51 and sit for 15 minutes waiting for the call to board.  After 10, the old lady I saw in the queue for security arrives in a wheelchair, I think that it's odd but maybe she can't manage the steps?

I'm safely ensconced in my seat, my usual 3C.  I don't know what it is about the flight down but 3D is rarely taken and today it's free so that means I have sole occupation of the middle arm rest.  4E and F behind me are free also, bliss, I am so antisocial, but I don't care.

I've brought my journal to write, love to write on the plane but can't do that until we're safely in the air and I can pull down my miniature table.  Until that time, I have a book to read.  When the cabin crew lady comes by with the trolley to ask me if I'd like anything, (silly question,) she tells me that she needs a new book, saw me laughing and asked what it was that I was reading?  'It's Danny Wallace, Awkward Situations for Men,' I say excitedly, 'it's very funny, you have to get it,' I say showing her the cover as if to convince.  Have to say, she doesn't look convinced but trust me, it's very funny. 

I first came across Danny Wallace columns in the free 'Shortlist' mag for men which I used to pick up for my buddy Paul.  It's a man's 'mag' and Paul would pick up 'Stylist' for me, we'd exchange every Wednesday, but not before I'd read the Danny Wallace article.  He often had me in stitches, crying with laughter... they both did, and so when I saw DW on the book shelf in my supermarket, I couldn't resist.

We'd only been in the air for a few minutes, just about levelled off when we dropped out of the sky, my stomach lurched, do you remember that feeling when you were little and the car you were in drove over a humped back bridge and you left you stomach somewhere behind?  The pilot has already warned of turbulence, it's a very windy day both in the North West and in Southampton, so it's to be expected.

I'm on one of those tiny planes with propellers, we've taken off 15 minutes late but arrive 5 minutes early, such is the strength of the wind.  The neon sticky tape is still on the floor, still ready to guide us all in case of emergency... crash landing, that sort of thing, you can't beat a bit of neon sticky tape in an emergency.

I have a packed weekend waiting for me but I'm really excited, it's like heading for family, that you like.  So excited.

It's 4.10 and the light is fading.  It's about 15 minutes to touch down, we're above the clouds and this always looks like heaven to me.  So lovely.  So peaceful.