Oct 8, 2003
Seven minutes
The sky was absolutely gorgeous tonight. Brilliant blue and aflame on the long western horizon with red, bleeding to orange and brilliant yellow, painted bright on wispy clouds.
In London, unless you’re high up, it’s difficult to see very far, because there’s alwasy a building in the way. On my way home, I’m lucky to catch brief glimpses of big skies; long views down the Thames to the west.
My study also faces west, and from the window, I have an abbreviated view of the sunset – parenthesised between a tall chimney stack and a tree.
Captured in this sliver of city sky, I can still see the dying sunset, fading with every minute, and the planes droning overhead before diminishing down the slim passageway of burning sky, between tree and chimney, towards Heathrow.
I figured out recently why I like living near a flight path so much. It’s about journeys and arrivals and expectation.
I like hearing the planes begin their descent above our house, like seeing them unfold their wheels after a long flight, getting ready for touchdown and taxiing, just as the passengers within are preparing for homecomings and holidays, reunions and happy returns.
We live seven minutes from touchdown, at the point where the wheels unfold, and since we moved to the area, more than one person has informed me with gruesome glee that when the wheels come down, sometimes the corpses of dead stowaways tumble out and land in the car park of our local Sainsburys.
I had always assumed that this was an urban myth – but no, it seems to be horribly true.
