moansings and groansings
This is not quite the worst bit actually, but would be poetically: after having taken what I keep on thinking was four but actually only three flights over a twenty-four hour period and seeing the inside of four international terminals (maybe that's where the four comes from) and having washed myself and then washed myself again and eaten a mango and a perfectly ripe apricot (more difficult to find than a good mango) and scrambled eggs, because since my mum's been away my dad appears to have survived on thai pumpkin and prawn soup (judging by the level of dried shrimp paste left in the jar), eggs and chinotto; after browsing the pile of old Good Weekends and Good Livings that my dad kept for me*, even after my first cup of tea in six weeks that came from leaves and not a bag --
I'm still not allowed to go to sleep. I am clean. I am slightly sticky all over from moisturiser and Sydney humidity (bless it, Switzerland was so dry), I'm not hungry, my hair is somewhere between so wet the cat recoils and nearly dry, everything has been unpacked and most, apologies to the dam levels, chucked into the washing machine to get rid of the scent of other people's houses. I am as at home as I'm ever likely to get on the same day my plane landed, with the requisite fuckings-up of cityrail (terminates at East Hills, fuckit), but it is only two in the afternoon and I am trying to re-program my body clock.
The only problem with this noble idea (of reprogramming so as not to have weird sleep patterns for three weeks) is that, if I am
1. not standing upright and
2. have my eyes closed - like now, typing, which it would appear I can do(ish),
then I fall instantly into a state of very pleasant semi-consciousness through which I can just hear the radio if I make an effort.
This is actually just a very long whine of someone who is likely to, in the next hour or so, nod off in front of the mango boxes in the greengrocer or forget what a bowl is called (I'll just make it in the....whatsit, thing, you know, this *holds up cereal bowl*)
Flight otherwise fairly uneventful. Watched movies, Stardust, which isn't going to make a great deal of sense unless you've read the book but not too recently, so the plot makes sense but the missing details don't aggravate you too much. And a Catherine Zeta-Jones film, No Reservations, which I cried at because it was about mother/daughter things and have I mentioned the being awake for twenty-four hours?
Free films are the one decent perk of long-haul flights. That and lunch in seven separate containers. And realising that there ins't some strange bobbly white city in vaguely the same location as Alice Springs, they're just clouds.
I will admit however to thinking, three hours away from Sydney when we'd just flown over Darwin:
"At least if we crash now it'll be in Australia."
Hello home.
I'm still not allowed to go to sleep. I am clean. I am slightly sticky all over from moisturiser and Sydney humidity (bless it, Switzerland was so dry), I'm not hungry, my hair is somewhere between so wet the cat recoils and nearly dry, everything has been unpacked and most, apologies to the dam levels, chucked into the washing machine to get rid of the scent of other people's houses. I am as at home as I'm ever likely to get on the same day my plane landed, with the requisite fuckings-up of cityrail (terminates at East Hills, fuckit), but it is only two in the afternoon and I am trying to re-program my body clock.
The only problem with this noble idea (of reprogramming so as not to have weird sleep patterns for three weeks) is that, if I am
1. not standing upright and
2. have my eyes closed - like now, typing, which it would appear I can do(ish),
then I fall instantly into a state of very pleasant semi-consciousness through which I can just hear the radio if I make an effort.
This is actually just a very long whine of someone who is likely to, in the next hour or so, nod off in front of the mango boxes in the greengrocer or forget what a bowl is called (I'll just make it in the....whatsit, thing, you know, this *holds up cereal bowl*)
Flight otherwise fairly uneventful. Watched movies, Stardust, which isn't going to make a great deal of sense unless you've read the book but not too recently, so the plot makes sense but the missing details don't aggravate you too much. And a Catherine Zeta-Jones film, No Reservations, which I cried at because it was about mother/daughter things and have I mentioned the being awake for twenty-four hours?
Free films are the one decent perk of long-haul flights. That and lunch in seven separate containers. And realising that there ins't some strange bobbly white city in vaguely the same location as Alice Springs, they're just clouds.
I will admit however to thinking, three hours away from Sydney when we'd just flown over Darwin:
"At least if we crash now it'll be in Australia."
Hello home.