Flying Home – The Climb #130

Wednesday 31^st May 2017

I wouldn’t call the flight from Calgary a total disaster but it certainly wasn’t one of my best flights.
The main problem was that unlike my other flights this trip, this one didn’t have a plug socket. I’d planned to work on a short story on the flight back – laying it out and maybe getting a first draft complete. The laptop was fully charged so without WIFI and turning off Bluetooth I probably could have got enough juice out of it to do that, but there were other problems as well.
First amongst those was the person sat next to me. She would not sit still. And I don’t just mean she was a bit nervous or a bit fidgety. Literally every 10 seconds she was shifting her entire body position. You know how someone might shift between a couple of positions to find the one most comfortable to them. She did this for the entire flight. It was exhausting and distracting.
She wasn’t the only distraction. Someone had a newborn baby a few rows back that wasn’t enjoying the flight. Poor thing, must have been very bewildering for them. I know some people find the cries of newborns quite soothing in a “new life” kinda way, but to me they are like nails on a chalkboard as some of those pitches babies can reach really hurt my ears. I have ever sympathy for new parents who have to live with that. No wonder they are always exhausted.
So work was out of the question and I was in that state where my body had energy as I’d been sitting down for most of the last day so couldn’t really sleep other than close my eyes and listen to music.
In the end I started playing Sherlock Holmes.
Flights are a great excuse for people watching, and so I spent a lot of the flight trying to piece together people’s lives from various clues.
There was the guy across the aisle from me. He was big, and by that I don’t just mean overweight. He was a tall big. So was his friend. I got the impression that he might have been incredibly athletic at one point but cutting out the gym had put on a few pounds. There was a good level of comedy between the friends and I noticed that he had a separate bag for a microphone he was travelling with. It was a traditional design rather than one of those blue yetis or similar style that video game streamers use.
So I came to the conclusion, he and his friend did a podcast, possibly something NFL-related.
Then there was the guy a few rows down. He was writing something. Ordinarily I would have thought he was just one of many flyers who use the time to catch up on emails or business proposals but whilst I couldn’t see (nor was that nosey to try and see) what he was writing, he had three windows open. That seemed to indicate some research.
Again that might indicate business were it not for a few things. He was working on a mac, which seemed to indicate something creative. He also had industrial piercings in both ears and so didn’t give me a corporate vibe. He was reading in the latter part of the flight and whilst I couldn’t see the cover, the colour of it made me think Fellside.
So I thought he might be a comic book writer until I decided that the structure of what he was writing looked more like prose than a script. I didn’t think he was a genre novelist as I probably would have at least recognised him.
I came to the conclusion he was probably something to do with music. He certainly wasn’t writing lyrics and the way he was dressed, whilst certainly of a fashion, seemed to be out of step with current trends.
So I came to the conclusion he was probably a music journalist.
This, my friends, is how I spent my 9 hour flight, with the person next to me constantly shifting around in their seat like an eel and a baby crying.
Passport control was quick – returning home doesn’t have the same anxiety that going somewhere has – but it took ages to get my bag as they decided to use two carousels for baggage and not tell anyone.
It was then a short bus ride to go and pick up the car and then begin the long drive home.
I stopped by my parents’, just to break the journey up. They weren’t in but I found them in the local pub with my aunt and uncle about to have lunch. I left them to it, and with some shopping from Morrison’s in hand, drove home.
Morrison’s never had turkey and so upon returning home I dumped my bag and then walked to my local store to try and pick up turkey burgers and meatballs. I went via the postal depot as I had a parcel waiting for me since just after I left. Morrison’s never had any meatballs so I bought a second set of burgers and decided I’d just cut those up.
The evening was spent chilling out and catching up on Youtube subscriptions. Lack of bandwidth has meant I’m two weeks behind. But despite videos only being 10 minutes long I really didn’t make much in the way of progress. I fell asleep at one time for a short period and then just seemed to derp around a lot.
Still, I did manage to put two washes on and get that hung up, so given I’d just got home I was pretty productive. I have a long, long list of things I need to do but that can wait for a day or so.
Tomorrow, when I’ll hopefully feel more refreshed, I have a very long to-do list to create. Plus I have a cake club meeting. My plan is that come Monday, I’ll have plans in place for not only the novel edits but for a few other projects as well.
But for now, I just need to get some rest and recover from what has been one of – if not the most – hectic and exhausting couple of weeks of my life.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.