It started at 6.30 with a bristly kiss from the taxi driver, our neighbour who'd agreed to take me to Schiphol. An hour's flight over the sea for a day in the heart of London, on business. Tall glass office block with glass-sided lifts running up the side of the atrium. Colleagues, dressed casually, packed into large, open offices at desks with double computer screens. One meeting of two hours - the reason for the visit - held in a cafe no the ninth floor. Two bosses listening intently, clearly expecting jj to deliver them from the realm of vague ideas into lines of type on sheets of paper.
Taxi driver with a foreign look but speaking broad Cockney. Rain. Back street grime. Little pubs and cafes, pizzerias nearby. Red double decker London buses. Rain. Roadworks. Piles of rubble and building works; an overhead railway being built. Tiny London City Airport. Damn, I forgot to tip the taxi driver who'd done such a good job of skirting round the jams. Upstairs to the Meridian Line restaurant where the menu tells you that "it takes just 10 minutes to get from here to the furthest gate" - time enough for a meal. I choose cream of celery soup, followed by a terribly healthy spinach and avocado salad. Eat every last leaf. Cost: 16 pounds something. The 'boarding now' sign flashes green and I head for Gate 5, clutching my last minute purchase - a superb book that's a must for an international bakery worker who needs to polish up her knowledge of dough.
It's windy as hell as we - one or two women and a whole pile of men in dark suits - board the plane. It's a propeller job. I settle into my window seat, noticing that I don't suffer from claustrophobia quite as much these days - good sign, as it flares up in times of emotional turmoil - and start to read my book. A pleasant chap, whitish hair, glasses, slightly red face drops into the seat next to me and let's out a sigh of relief. Just made it. He works for an international exchange, flew 200 times last year and is going home to Amsterdam for the night to see his daughter from the States. Then he'll be off to Paris tomorrow afternoon.
Did you hear the weather report, he asks. No. "It's really bad. Very strong winds. It could be a bumpy ride," he says. Oh sh..., I think, I'm scared. "Just imagine you're in a boat on a rough sea," I say,"Then it's not so bad."
The air is smooth as a duck pond all the way across the Channel and the North Sea. Thirty-five minutes after take-off, we begin the descent. It starts to wobble. We're bobbing around up there on the airwaves. My fellow passenger chuckles and sighs. "A few days ago we couldn't land in Amsterdam due to the wind," he says. I give up reading my book on effective dough-making, leave the book on my lap and breath calmly. The mantra I've been chanting recently starts sounding in my head and feels good. (Years ago I wouldn't have touched a mantra with a barge pole but I've long since departed from the conservative to dabble in all sorts of touchy-feely things...) In my mind's eye, I'm back in New Zealand, relishing the next smack of the boat on a turbulent sea or sitting in a tiny five-seater plane as it ducks and loops over green hills.
The landing is the smoothest I've ever experienced. So much so that it's several minutes before I realise we're on the ground.
"It was terrible," a woman says into her mobile phone as we queue at passport control, "I wasn't the only one who was scared." I wonder for a moment if she was on the same flight as me. Ah, those mantras, there's something in it you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment