Everyone else I know is flying Ryanair to Ireland.
I know I’m not but I can’t remember the name of my airline.
It’s the local one that begins with a ‘c’, I keep saying.
When I do finally land in Dublin and see all the big green planes of Aer Lingus I realise my mistake….
Landing in Dublin was a distant concept when the alarm went off in my hermetically sealed, over-air-conditioned cell of a hotel room at 4.30 am.
The noise from the gambling machines and children’s play area just outside my inward facing window had kept me awake until after 1 am. I felt raw and puffy and cranky.
Re-packed the cases for the twentieth time this month and prayed the big one weighed a little less after my expensive trip to the post office yesterday.
The sun was forcing its way back up again as I spent another 4 quid on the Hotel Hopper to Terminal (never a more apt description) One.
I swear I gave the bus-driver a tenner but he gives me change of 5.
I’m flying BMI. That’s the one.
They calculate your air-fare on your weight divided by the weight of your suitcases multiplied by the distance you’re about to travel.
The smiling hostess icon on the Express Check-in screen informs me that my departure is from Gate 80 which is
A HALF HOUR WALK away….
Thiry minutes of brisk walking is ten minutes more than the recommended amount required for fitness and weight maintenance and usually doesn’t involve dragging two suitcases, plus a 2k handbag slung across your chest and your puffer jacket draggin on the floor.
And even if it meant that I would burn off all the overpriced apalling red wine I’ve been guzzling lately, at 5.45 a.m. I am not in the mood.
What about a bus ?
The Air France flight from Paris to Germany involved a fifteen minute BUS-RIDE from the terminal to the plane…
A HALF HOUR WALK !!!!!?
I set off with a heavy heart and a heavy load.
And that’s before I get to the Baggage Check-in.
A surly young man who refuses eye contact snaps the elastic tape barrier back, beckons me in, and mutters something about having to check the weight of my bag.
So, I wait.
What he means is, I have to put the bag up on to the scales.
Rolling I can do, lifting needs help. It’s not forthcoming.
5.9k over the limit.
Back out through the aisles of elastic tape I lumber. Back to the licence-to-print-money Cashier’s Desk.
Nobody home.
It’s 5.58. Maybe they don’t come on ’til 6.
Oi ! I’ve got a HALF HOUR WALK to do. I’ll need to set out soon !
And there’d better be a caff at the other end ‘cos I ain’t ‘ad’ny breakfast yet, init.
I’m even thinking in English now !
A yoo-hoo yields nothing.
Five minutes later a woman drifts in, doesn’t look at me, charges me 7 pounds a kilo excess, tries to print the receipt for me to take to her surly colleague back at Baggage but the maching breaks down and she has to take the lid off and stick a biro in it, init.
35 pounds stirling.
I should be grateful.
Germany to Paris cost me 85 euros.
I am a woman travelling for 3 months with the barest possible minimum of clothing.
I, the Imelda of Melbourne, am travelling with one pair of trainers (on my feet) and one pair of boots !
I deserve some kind of medal !!!
Not maltreatment by BMI excess-weight nazis.
Back to surly, non-weighing, weight-checker.
On to surly Baggage Check-in proper.
Incomprehensible accent even to a good ear like mine.
I have to ask her to repeat several key questions a couple of times without sounding too much like Marjorie Dawes from Little Britain.
Will I remove the old labels, she asks me through lips of tightly-drawn string.
I give it a go but they’re stuck fast and only get more stucker as I pull.
Do you have any scissors ? I ask.
No, do you have any scissors ? she snaps back. Or any other sharp objects.
No ! Because if I did I would use them to CUT OFF THESE LABELS you dopey twat. I think. To myself.
She stares at me, all open-mouthed disbelief, waiting for me to morph into Edwina Scissorhands.
I glare back at her like a petulant child and say firmly,
‘Can’t’.
We part, mortal enemies For Life.
And then.
My HALF HOUR WALK begins.
Will I eat here, where there is a caff ?
Or will I do the walk and hope for the best ?
With the words of my favourite Eddie Izzard routine - ‘Well, there must have been a canteen on the Death Star, musn’t there ?’ -ringing in my ears, I charge ahead to Security.
By now I have learned not to wear an underwired bra, so, I make it through the gate without a good and proper frisking before breakfast.
An electronic sign looms immediately ahead.
‘Gate 80 - 10 minutes’
It’s like the South-Eastern Freeway.
‘Warrigal Road - 40 minutes’
‘Toorak Road - delays’
Ten minutes ?
So.
Not a HALF HOUR WALK ?
Or did my exchange with Mrs Bitchface Baggage Hag count as 20 ?
Ten minutes ?!
I can do that.
In fact, I can stop for breakfast right here and now.
I start to feel really good, until I realise I have NO MONEY LEFT because the thieving, crooked bus driver fleeced me of my last fiver.
Chip-and-pin it is then, because, Lord knows, cash or no cash, you need a credit card to buy breakfast at Heathrow.
After my Bacon and Egg Toastie and mug of beige swill I’m ready to take on the world and its wife.
The ten minute walk goes by like 5, and I’m standing at a T-intersection in front of another sign.
There’s an arrow pointing left below the words:
‘GATES 70-78′
and an arrow pointing right below the words:
‘GATES 82-90′.
Can youpick what’s wrong with the sign ?
‘Excuse me,’ I say to the top of a desk, ‘there are two gates missing and I need one of them’.
‘No, no,’ says the desk. ‘Through that door. Gate 80 through that door.’
But.
‘I know. I know.’
Through the door to Gate 80, Brigadoon, into a lounge full of green chairs.
We are going to Ireland.
It’s 6.15 by now and an Irish voice is shouting over the P.A. that my 7 am flight to Dublin is boarding NOW and that everyone should just be getting a very big move on, if you don’t mind.
No-one moves from the green chairs.
A woman doing a customer survey for BMI Airlines with a woman opposite me, looks towards the ceiling and makes disapproving noises and reassures us all that this is indeed Gate 80 and that that announcement is just so wrong it’s embarassing.
Oh, Miss ! Pick me ! Pick me to answer your survey !
Please !
I know ALL the answers !
They’re not the answers you want to hear but it’ll fill up your sheet.
Sensing my eagerness, perhaps, she tries to slip away but the security door has snapped shut and we are all TRAPPED FOR EVER in the ghostly gate-lounge on the green chairs listening to piped misinformation.
Irish jokes aside, it’s almost funny.
Almost.
Half an hour later, safely on the plane, the captain announces that there will be a slight delay of HALF AN HOUR due to traffic out of Heathrow.
The rest of the crew, perhaps, doing the HALF HOUR WALK ?

Tags: THE ADDRESS BOOK, Uncategorized //