Category Archives: Life
USA Intro Day 1 – The Journey
Seat Layout
Day 1 – The Journey
I have embarked on a tour of the States for three months to see friends and work a little (yes I have the right visa) and get out of the Big Smoke that is London.
The adventure started with a stay at the Sofitel Gatwick. The rooms are adequate but if you think anything might be going on in Gatwick of an evening then think again. The pubs are shut; the bars are open next to the hotel and what they lack in atmosphere they make up for in price on the drinks, because the pubs are shut. Nonetheless a good night’s sleep was had. I never like to travel hung over or worse drunk and this is from past lessons learned. Nothing is worse than feeling like vomit and your delayed plane journey consists of a bumpy ride with the obligatory child kicking your chair.
This time I had the wonderful option of travelling by Business Class. This means two things on British Airways; no child kicking your chair repeatedly whilst the parents ignore its happening and you also get the chair that reclines into the bed. The bed is an amazing and comfortable and highly lazy option, it makes any journey fly by (pun intended.)
I was facing an odd soon to be pensioner red jumper wearing (hers with pearls) couple who were looking directly at me. We all had our feet up and I could tell neither of us wanted to be looking at each other’s faces. I was looking at them, they were looking at me, a divider window was between us but being English no one wanted to press the button and be rude. So I did what anyone would do and waited for the woman to go to the bathroom. I pressed the button which didn’t work. The window came up and then came back down. I styled it by looking ahead and pretending that it hadn’t happened. The husband ignored it too. She pressed it on her return and it worked.
I reclined into the laziest recline possible. Not quite the bed but like a sofa. Pulled up a film to watch and relaxed but unfortunately in front of me were two parents either side of two children as the seats in the middle are a cluster of four. To get to the middle the father in front of me had to keep getting up and stepping over my feet. The wife to see the husband had to do the same. This wouldn’t have been a problem had they not wanted to do this at least twenty times with both having the balance of let’s say zero. Each time without fail they kicked my chair. The manna that I was expecting of a no kicking zone ceased. They always mumbled sorry, but they didn’t stop. I looked down and mumbled its ok but refused eye contact which is the universal phrase for it’s not OK. But in the end with my eye mask on and trying to have one almighty snooze they kicked the seat for one last time at which whoever it was got to see blindfolded woman shoot up with hands out in an asking fashion grunting Ughh’ at them. It didn’t stop but it did calm down after.
The rest of the flight was without incident.
Life is short
Today our caretaker at work suddenly died. Bob was a smiley fellow in his sixties. Slim frame, smoker’s gentle London voice and smoker’s lungs. Slim and cheery, always so cheery. He was someone who had become part of my every day am. I park my car and there he would be, popping out to say ‘morning’ from his underground office or in the lobby and a comment about another day in the rat race and a chuckle. That was 9am this morning. At three pm someone came into me to say he had been found dead in his office.
Already this week my family have been in remembrance of my Uncle who passed away a year ago on the 19th May. His wife had fallen seriously ill and was in intensive care in hospital. The panic and shock and unhealthy life style he had led took it’s toll and he died of a heart attack; A broken heart. She made it through to find him not there…
It’s also the remembrance of my granddad Alf. The blond curtain haired cheeky chappy that I was so close to through all my years. He is the one who used to sit with me as a child playing a word game. He would say to me ‘Think of as many words as you can beginning with the letter G’ and being about seven or eight years old I would sit and concentrate for what felt like an hour. I’d have a list of about ten words. If we had the same word we’d cross them off and the winner would be whom had the most left. It took me years to work out that he had always been reading my words and putting less than me so that I would win but learn also.
Grandad was a religious man who never went to church. A solitary man who married once and then was never connected to anyone else although we were always suspicious that he liked the lady in the local launderette. He had watched every nature programme on television. He saturated the meat in too much fat. When he cooked for my friend and I and I told him my friend was vegetarian, grandad panicked and said ‘but kid what does he eat?’ My friend ended up with a big plate of cabbage.
He snored like no other and when I was age seven I used to have the top bunk of bunk beds and him the bottom and I’d fallen asleep on an old style cassette recorder where I had tried to tape the evidence of the snoring. Everyone knew though. You could hear him from down the street. Grandad who started crying when I cried at the monkey’s dying in the film Project X, because he didn’t want me to be upset. Grandad who laughed the loudest when we did impressions of him. Grandad who listened to every thought I had like it was the most important thing he could have ever heard. He loved us all so much and we loved him. He really was the best Grandad a girl could have wanted.
So in remembrance my little blog a reminder that all we have is the here and now and it is a waste to not live life for the moment. And a glass raised to Bob, John and Grandad Alf. Rest in Peace.
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