Long absence from blogging because, guess what? I’ve been to Jamaica. All thanks to my lovely generous, clever and beautiful and spontaneous friend. Sometimes life throws an opportunity you just have to catch. The next few entries are likely to be about the trip, but not too much about Jamaica because…well, you’ll see. In case you came looking for some kind of tourist guide, here’s the info: the weather is really hot, the sea is blue, they drink a lot of rum and syrupy fruit drinks, prices are more or less the same as the UK, Riu Hotel’s delicious all inclusive buffets make you fat, you can buy drugs and sex the reggae is free and all three are everywhere. Print that, Thomson.
I’m frightened of loads of stuff. I blame my Nan who was a lovingly overprotective grandparent. I don’t like: escalators that run downwards, standing on anything higher than chair height, the sensation of floating, small boats, unfamiliar squishy foods, insects, anything wobbly, anything I might fall off of, graze myself on, or trap my finger in…The list is extensive, do you think it includes fear of flying?
We had champagne at the airport. They have a special type of café that sells all different types of it by the glass or bottle, served with smoked salmon for breakfast if you like. I’m sort of afraid of Champaign, not particular because of the danger of corks, nor the risk demonstrated by Richard Herring of the surprise anal insertion of a bottle of verve clincot during a threesome, but because wine brings on indigestion. However, my friend suggested a bucks fizz compromise option and I didn’t have the heart to say that orange juice gives me indigestion too, so I was drinking alcohol at 7am. This may or may not be enough to excuse my updating my facebook status far too often for anyone’s comfort. Ah well..
We boarded on time. It had all been trouble free. Nick asked me what kind of plane it was, but I can only say it was a big one, the type that has two seats by each window and four down the middle. I was all set for the flight; I had crisps and sweets, my Kindle and my revision notes. Seatbelt sign illuminated, we trundled into position. My Nan forgot to warn me that metal tubes are subject to gravity and so I love flying fearlessly. Take off is my favourite, I watched Birmingham recede under clouds, the sweets dealt with my painful ears and I was looking forward to ten hours 15 minutes: my choice of doing revision/watching in-flight movies.
I often point out to anyone who will listen, that anywhere people gather to enjoy themselves, there will be a twat to ruin it. I’m afraid I always use the word ‘twat’ so am compelled to use it in this case (no, I’m not self-aware enough to realise that sometimes I might be the twat). A seat along from us was a man with twin one year old babies. As I watched him repeatedly berate his small, placid daughter, I made my classic remark to my friend. I’m not sure she heard, she was enjoying a little drink, and is in any case too open of spirit to notice even the the most twattish behaviour. Thinking about it, this may be the reason for our friendship enduring over decades.
We had been in flight for an hour when the voice of the pilot came from the PA, we were turning back due to a fault with the aeroplane. All around me, the air thickened with anxiety. The flight back was long enough for this to transform into a kind of group sulkiness. We were supposed to be on the way to Jamaica, but now we were heading for East Midlands Airport. How dare the pilot not carry on? Surely the fault couldn’t be that bad, there was no smell of smoke or rushing of wind. Surreptitiously, once I had familiarised myself with the location of the emergency exit, I reached under my seat to find the lifejacket. The seatbelt was already tight enough. Fully extended, it was a snug fit.
East Midlands airport was pretty in the sunshine. The fire engines came along to welcome us as our plane, fat with fuel for long haul, it landed hard, and there was a small fire. There was some tutting. I pretended I was the queen as I walked down the aircraft steps. I’ve never seen her boarding a bus parked at the bottom though. In my opinion, she’s missing out. I love a game of sardines. We had several hours to get to know East Midlands Airport (the bit we were locked into has a bar, a café, six toilets, a cage for smokers and erm..) during which I dropped and broke my Kindle. This was the worst thing that happened all holiday as I was left with nothing to read but my revision notes. Anyone who has ever read the National Dementia Strategy will be aware this couldn’t be a good thing.
Thompson gave us a £5 voucher for a meal, and got us all back on the plane. They had fixed the faulty brake fluid pipe, and were taking on some more fuel. At some point. Quite soon. Presumably this could only be done with all of the passengers on board. The pilot came back on. We would be taking off…. but were going to Manchester. There was a lot of shouting in the cabin at this point, so it took a while to get the gist that this was because replacement crew were being collected. They couldn’t come to us because this would mean them working too long, which is what had happened to the existing crew while they waited for the repairs.
I got on with learning the mechanisms by which the body controls blood pressure. Fascinating. The man with the children was up and out of his seat, swaggering to the back of the plane and making his views known to the stewardess. He came back rather in the manner of a yo-yo on the up spin. How dare she tell him to sit down? Holding his now sleeping daughter in his arms, he paced and shouted, too close for comfort in the small cabin. Other men attempted to soothe him, but this served to reignite his ire. Meanwhile, the man in the window seat took his third glug from his litre of duty free scotch.
It was a smooth landing in Manchester, England, where there were no palm trees. Jamaica has a Manchester too, probably it has no magpies. A woman told me the delay had ruined her holiday. The plane was hot. There were unpleasant odours. I felt lucky. We weren’t floating on a raft in the Atlantic. We wouldn’t get to Jamaica only to crash because our crew were exhausted. The day had started with Champaign and my glass was half full. In this moment of peace I realised that finally I was mentally well, able to cope with stress and see the positive. It’s been a long trip. Then the twat started up again. The atmosphere became dark as the crew attempted to placate him. The man by the window, by now a litre through his duty free, began to argue with his girlfriend. Further along, a young woman who seemed to be unaware of the possibility of a moderate approach to tanning or vocal volume remarked that Thomson should refund the cost of the trip, ‘If I’m not there I lose a £45 appearance fee’. I was intrigued but too shy to ask for an autograph.
A new captain came on. In furious tone, he said that he would be completing pre-flight checks in his own time and we were to stay in our seats and not take it out on the crew who had all had to come in at short notice. Then, the police arrived. They ordered us to sit down, in a way that suggested they might pull out guns if we failed to comply. As they dealt with the twat, and the drunk who had refused to yield his bottle to the crew, holding it to himself more lovingly than the father held the still sleeping baby. A posh man cornered a member of the cabin crew, calling out that he wasn’t happy to be shouted at by the police. The twat swapped twins, and began to play with his infant son in a charming way.
We were off. They gave us a letter at the end to claim on the insurance for the nine hour delay, but it was more than made up for by the free in-flight entertainment supplied by the passengers. At bedtime, there was fruit punch with rum. I have no fear of rum.
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