Journeying Home

Virgin Mojito, nuts and a book.

Flew home from the site in Malawi today after a week away with work. We left the estate and flew for about a hour to the main airport, then went back through to clear for international. It’s moderately uncomplicated as the Beechcraft’s pilots are familiar with it.

Then another three and a half hours back on our six seater heading back to Johannesburg. People mostly tired and looking forward to home, conversations subdued. We all observed the ‘no fluids until 90 mins out’ rule to avoid having to use the emergency toilet. One heart in mouth moment when we dropped and jolted thanks to the wake turbulence from another flight. It shook us out of a bit of complacency, reminding everyone of the dangers of flying.

Landed at Fireblade and after refreshing ourselves, got dropped at OR Tambo departures having said goodbye to the rest of our team who were heading to Durban once the aircraft refuelled.

I used aircraft there because that’s what my mate Jon, who regulates the European Industry told me to call it. However, in my head the Beechcraft is a plane and the A380 I’m getting into is an aircraft.

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Sitting on the flight from Johannesburg at midnight listening to “To All New Arrivals” by Faithless in a noise reduced bubble as the turbulence has woken me. Everything says I should be asleep but I’m not. My eyes call for it but my body feels the twitch of our behemoth as it slices through the air some 10km above the Indian Ocean.

Dinner was served, bizarrely, a few hundred miles from the place I left in Malawi this morning, with the distance being covered so much faster under huge turbofans than twin propellers. Luxury in the sky.

But I can’t sleep. Yet. It will come. I know, but then I’ll be waking up again as we reach Dubai and it’ll be several hours before I can rest again. But every minute brings me closer to home.

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Quick connection at Dubai, enough time for a coffee and some fruit. I'd  managed perhaps ninety minutes of sleep, mainly due to people brushing into me as they went to the washrooms and bar at the back of the compartment,  and then a low voiced but very audible conversation nearby.

Hardest search yet. Embarrassing as I couldn’t remove my (transparent) phone case as it was on so tight. I’m not sure if the guard realised it was clear or just decided that it wasn’t worth the queue building. Full metal detection and drugs scanning, quite intrusive. I guess I now know how my dad used to feel when he flew into London from Manchester or Liverpool at the height of the Troubles when the place he was flying from and his surname got him searched every time.

Looking forward to getting back home. Still got to navigate the taxi side though. And remember the Malaria tablets when the time comes.

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Final leg, sitting at the front. Several hours of sleep, and the luxury of no passing traffic to get the facilities. Did some work starting to write up what I'd seen, then finished a book which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected from its opening. Watched the distance and time slowly descend and then we were over Europe and green returned as the dominant colours on the land below.

Textbook landing, and simple transit through border controls. Used the new navy passport that reminds me of everything we lost from 2016 every time I look at it to get through the e-Gate. Arrived in at the baggage carousel to see my bag across the carousel width going back into the back to come around again.

Taxi waiting so straight home, and back to the family to find the family room downstairs in carnage as things are sorted in slow preparation for some work next year. 

Back to life, back to reality, back to the here-and-now. Back to my loved ones.

10 June 2023

Virgin Mojito and Espresso...