The alarm goes off at 4am. Incredibly, I wake up, having managed 4 hours of sleep. Which is a far better world than no hours of sleep. Feel like throwing a party to celebrate.
0440. I totter out onto the Archway Road in darkness and start shivering. I’m just wearing a suit. If I’m shivering and can see clouds of my breath in Highgate, I ponder, I doubt Stockholm is going to be warmer. I nip back and get my winter coat.
0450. No sign of the night bus yet. Need to get to Paddington for 0515 or so, and it means catching two night buses in a row. Keen to minimise any chances of having to rush at Heathrow and – if I’m honest – not keen on night buses full stop, I wave down a black cab and hang the expense. The taxi seems to go via every speed bump in North and North-West London. By the time we get to Paddington, I feel shaken, and indeed stirred. But it’s fine. As I walk to the Heathrow Express platform, I feel strangely exhilarated. Perhaps because it’s my first time leaving the UK all by myself. For 36, read 13.
0657. Sitting in the departures area after a painless checking-in and security check. For the latter, I make sure I queue behind two young Polish ladies taking their time with the business of putting their things in those plastic X-Ray trays. I always think it’s me that’s holding up queues, worrying too much, taking too long to do whatever the ritual requires. Solution: shadow people who are even slower, and hope this will mask your own slowness. I do this in supermarket queues, too. Never mind terrorists; I walk in searing dread of people tutting behind me in queues that I’m fussing too much and taking too long. If only anxiety could be harnessed as an energy source. In my case, it’s infinitely renewable.
Sitting in the departures area, looking around at shops. A rather forlorn, drooping piece of shop decoration stands immediately to my left, in front of The Cigar House. Standing free, it’s a wide cylindrical frame of flimsy golden struts covered in red spheres, tapering into a cone at the top. At first I think it’s a golden Dalek that’s been beaten up. Then I realise it’s a Christmas tree. Or rather, was a Christmas tree.
Airports already have a form of Daleks, of course. Close your eyes, and you can hear the trundling of trolleys and wheeled suitcases everywhere.
Ah, they’ve just announced my flight.
