It's a surreal day that began with me waking up in Brighton and ended with me falling asleep above the clouds on my way to Africa. Even only 24 hours on it seems impossible that all that happened on the same day, but such is the wonder of the modern world.
It didn't help with my dizziness that I was pretty tired, having to get home, pack (hadn't even started to do this), get to Paddington and get to the airport by 4.30pm. Plus I was a little hungover for the first time in over a month. But maybe it's a good thing to do all this stuff in a dream-like state, so it doesn't seem quite real, because getting places is the tedious part of travelling, even if some of it is very exciting.
Security was still tight at Heathrow, for which I am very grateful. You can't take pastes or liquids through the departure gates now and you have to taste your baby milk (which was a hassle for me as I like to drink at least ten pints on any average plane flight). You'd think enterprising terrorists (who didn't care about killing their own baby) would come up with a bottle with two compartments in it so they can drink from one and have deadly explosives in the other. Don't want to give them ideas, but come on terrorists, pull your fingers out!
I was surprised to be pulled over by the official who claimed there was some kind of tube in my bag. I didn't know what this could be, but I was using a bag with many pockets and which I had used to use when I went to the gym and discovered it was my poofy expensive Clinique facial exfolliant. These are quite expensive and I have lost two almost full tubes this year (mislaying them at the gym) and so now I was to lose a third. Admittedly it was one that I had forgotten I owned, but still there was about eight quids worth of face scrubbing stuff still in there. I am the true victim of the War on Terror. No-one has suffered more than me as the result of the actions of the terrorists. If a 39 year old heterosexual man can't accidentally carry face scrub paste through security at an airport then Al Quaida have won. I don't want to live in a world where something like this can happen.
Aside from that the pre-journey was unremarkable, but once I was on the plane and had had a couple of glasses of champagne, with all the weariness of a day travelling from Brighton to mid-air somewhere above the African continent, it was easy to fall asleep.
Tune in next time to find it my plane crashed or whether I made it OK. Exciting huh?
