Dec 21, 2001
Huddled
In Iona, huddled in my mum’s office, wearing four layers of clothing and slippers.
The wind is (literally) blowing a gale against the window – the stone walls of this building are three feet thick, but the windows are vulnerable. Makes you appreciate double glazing, I assure you.
So, the journey here. Well. I was sick last night – part worry, part I don’t know what – so I got about 4.3 minutes sleep. The alarm was set for six so I could get up and get organised before walking at a leisurely pace the 20 minute stroll to the station, where I was to catch the 07.12am to the airport, where I would then check in by 8am, a full hour and a quarter before my flight. Easy peasy.
It didn’t quite happen like that.
The alarm went off, and I rolled over and looked at it, before sitting bolt upright in bed screeching “faaaaaaaaaaark” and shaking Paul awake. Quarter past seven. Oops. Got up and ready in about five minutes flat and then sprinted (as much as one can with a backpack full of woollens and a hold-all bulging with pressies) to the station, in time for the quarter to eight train. Which didn’t go to the airport.
I had to change to another train, then get a bus to the airport, all the while checking my watch and chanting to myself “come ON come ON come ON” as other passengers faffed needlessly with their luggage/hair/wallets in the doorway of the bus. Time ticked by. I had mild palpitations. The bus pulled up to the kerb in front of the terminal with a full two minutes to go before check in closed at nine. Hah.
Then I had to run to the gate, pausing only to discover that I’d somehow managed to pack two toothbrushes in my cabin baggage, but no toothpaste. Anyway, I’m only glad there wasn’t an ITV soapumentary crew legging it after me through the terminal, making some fly-on-the-wall guff about Luton airport….
The flight was turbulent – we bounced around the sky in a this-is-not-natural kind of way, and only the fact that I hadn’t yet had breakfast (come to that, I hadn’t even woken up properly) prevented me from losing it all over the cabin.
Then there was a bus and a train, and then a ferry crossing (rough) and a long bus journey over the isle of mull (still nauseous), and one final rough ferry crossing in the dark and over big waves.Yeeech.
I got here. I’m glad.
I’m also stressed and exhausted – it’s taken removing me from the city, from my pattern of life, to realise just how knackered, off-kilter and out-of-sorts I have become recently. Bad Meg. Bad Meg.
The lack of updates to this site which may follow could be caused by electrical failure, excessive wine, not being able to get out of bed or being buffetted around by the wind up a hill somewhere. Someone asked me what my plans were for christmas, yesterday, and I told him, straight-faced, that I planned to work on inducing deep-vein thrombosis by sitting in one position for a very very very long time, on the sofa, watching tv, talking, drinking tea or wine, reading. Wish me luck.
But in the meantime, if you check back here in the next few days and see nothing, don’t be disappointed. Be happy for the silences – they mean I am regenerating, resting, coming back to life.
