Getting up at 5am to trek from South West London to 'London Stansted' – very deceptive for unsuspecting tourists – is never a doddle, but in this particular instance I wake up pretty much worse for wear. Previous days activities included:
Picnicking in Richmond park, with a bottle of Peroni and a good friend, then on to a champagne infused leavers do, which is followed by more champagne at the work leavers flat and a healthy helping of home made Rhubarb schnapps. The schnapps, I might add, are absolutely divine and trickle down my throat with delightful ease – hence my being worse for wear. A cave madam style farewell to my lovely friend who (stupidly) offered to drive me to the station at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (she offered after a few of those rhubarb schnapps), and off I am on the commuter train trundling along enroute to sun, shine,and good food. My friend trundles straight back into bed.
The upside of this early journey is the bus ride on the 26 from Waterloo to Liverpool Street. Gliding over the bridge gives you the most spectacular views of London just as the sun is peaking. Houses of parliament to one side, St Paul's, the gherkin, and the rest of the city to your other side. Faced with these incredible views, I feel on top of the world: yes folks, London is simply fabulous! I glance round at the other passengers smiling from ear to ear who do not seem to notice the ancient Babylon style views that are getting me so excited. They are either asleep or looking straight ahead. Uncultured unappreciative beings I think to myself for a second before spotting Somerset house, immediately forgetting about the uncultured ones. This sigh inducing journey gives me a glimpse of the bustling early morning city life, I am lucky to spot the wobbly Millennium bridge with the Tate Modern building rising on the South bank of the river...which reminded me...damn, how on earth did I forget my obligatory visit to the Tate this time?
It's the weekend following the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption, and during the course of the week I rebook my flight twice. I'm not complaining. I'm not stranded abroad with maxed out credit cards. For me it works out quite well actually. I managed to get myself a dentist and opticians appointment at short notice in the same week, that is almost a miracle. Now I can face the summer with contact lenses, sunglasses and a minimum of squinting to avoid those crows feet lines, which I already have, and do not under any circumstances want to make any worse. What can I say, I have a very expressive face.
Stansted airport is pretty much empty at 8 in the morning, so I whizz through security and hit the shops. Having an overflowing carry on bag, hitting the shops means window shopping. So I make a note of those Ralph Lauren sunglasses – I'll get them in July.
I sleep all the way from Stansted to Ancona, where somewhere over the Adriatic sea just off Ancona I am rudely awakened by turbulence. I hate turbulence. For a fleeting second I think we'll crash, and no I will not scream, because there's nothing that anyone can do about it if we do crash. Anyway, we seem to be descending alarmingly fast through a stubborn patch of fog, which is never reassuring, plane swinging from side to side when suddenly the runway comes into view. Which is all fine, but in this case the distance between the runway and the plane is just a few metres – surely that's wrong. Everyone holds their breath as we feel a massive thud...we 'crash' land (it feels that way), we are still moving at an immense speed and I suspect any faster and we would quite possibly tip sideways, and then crash, again. These reckless Spanish pilots (I think he is from Spain, or something). Everyone is silent until that horrible Ryanair victory tune starts up. The plane is full of Italians, and not one of them claps. This abscence of Italians clapping is direct evidence of a bad landing.
I get off as quick as possible, swim through security, and fall into the arms of my beautiful Italian boy, safe at last.
