The last few weeks have been a blur. We delivered our sculpture, ‘Icarus had a Sister’ and a second smaller framed piece ‘Wallflower II’, to the professional art couriers exactly four weeks ago so they could be properly crated and fly ahead of us to land in Australia two weeks in advance of our own flight, in case it got stopped for quarantine purposes. Who would have thought that works of art have to go through quarantine!? But yes, being a remote island, Oz has incredibly strict yet sensible laws about what can enter and how to prevent foreign insects or creatures sneaking onto the island and spreading wildly, eating indigenous plants or killing off local wildlife. Anything containing wood (like our crates, and the frame around the second smaller sculpture the collector has purchased from us) would be potentially subject to quarantine inspections and even treatments such as heating or irradiation or chemical sprays. Our sculpture would not withstand heat or chemical sprays without damage and suffice to say we have no way of testing it for reactions to irradiation (can’t just casually pop to Chernobyl with a massive work of art to observe how the materials behave), so we have done literally everything we can to try to avoid quarantine inspectors from stopping it.
We have removed the frame from Wallflower II (Australia MUST have its own framers to re-attach one the other end…it is not a 3rd world country after all). All of the MDF boards in the inner crates have been made from specially chemically treated moisture-resistant bloody expensive green MDF that should hopefully signal to the quarantine inspectors that no bugs will be hiding in it. All cavities in the sculpture have been filled to prevent any sinister English critters acting as stowaways. And we have been saying daily prayers for a swift and speedy transfer of the sculpture through customs and quarantine for the last few months. Which has to count for something, surely, specially from non-religious types like us?
We are more than a bit uncomfortable that despite chasing regularly, we have as yet had no confirmation of receipt of the sculpture from our client yet and no word from the art courier of where the work is. So yesterday, André phoned the art couriers to chase it up. This is when we found out our precious sculpture, the reason we were travelling to the other side of the world at our own expense…was still sat on the tarmac at Heathrow and hadn’t yet left the country.
When I overheard him repeating this on the phone in shock, his disbelief and horror only just starting to process through his brain, I think I said ‘FUCK!’ so loudly that the entire street would have heard.
It seems, due to some behind the scenes hitches and a bit of bad luck, our sculpture, held securely within its massive crate (think of the Ark of the Covenant in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’) had been ‘bumped’ from several flights. – the unlucky loser in a game of freight Tetris played by Heathrow airport staff. The jigsaw piece that didn’t fit in with the other crates….several times in a row.
It is very lucky that my man was making this particular phone call and not me. I marvelled at his stoic ability to remain professional under such enormous strain when he calmly requested the situation be resolved immediately. In the meantime I was chewing off my own elbows and hair with worry, whilst figuring out worst-case scenario fallback plans in my head.
We fly tomorrow, arrive in two days time, and are meant to install the next day. That gives the sculpture four days to get there and pass through customs and quarantine. Something we were told it may need two weeks for and purposefully gave it a month for to be on the safe side. We are in Melbourne for 3 days before we fly to Perth. Can I rearrange the flights to Perth to buy us a day or two? Not without paying a huge fee, forfeiting our Airbnb booking, and risking missing our backpacking tour bus that has been booked to take us up the West Coast of Australia. What about when we come back to Perth from the backpacking tour, could we fly back from Perth to Melbourne at the end of our trip? Not without missing our flight to Singapore from Perth. OK, so what if HAVE to do that?
ALL these things were racing through my mind. Throw more money at it, make it happen, it’s not impossible, make it happen! A few lost days and a couple of thousand pounds in extra travel costs is nothing compared to being sued for non-delivery. But I was crushed in my soul thinking about how disappointed and worried our poor client would be having placed so much trust in us for such a big purchase from the other side of the world, paying in full and just hoping we weren’t major con-artists. We had done everything in our power to make this a smooth ride and yet here we were in shit-trousers city once again.
Luckily, the art couriers had owned the mistakes and already contacted the client to explain and reassure them. Extra fees were paid and we were told we had been ‘bumped up the queue’ at Heathrow for our sculpture to be on the next available flight. They said everything ‘should’ be fine now. Neither of us felt completely convinced at this point, I must admit.
I tried to reassure myself that throughout the making of Icarus, we had been continually ‘helped’ by unseen forces with things coming together perfectly at the last minute, even when it seemed really stressful or hopeless. I told myself that the same angels were watching over us whether we believed in them or not. And I also recognised with the small remaining logical part of my brain that still functioned to think of things besides sharks that we actually couldn’t do a blooming thing about any of it other than trust and hope.
I am also trusting and hoping that André will finish packing soon. It is midnight and we are being collected just before 6:50am tomorrow morning by the taxi to take us to the airport, and my man is still deciding how many t-shirts he will need and asking me where all the lost holiday things are. [NB: Lost holiday things are the things you re-buy each year before going on vacation because you’ve put them somewhere ‘safe’ for the next trip and then can’t for the life of you remember where that is. It usually includes but is not limited to:- travel plugs, mosquito repellant plug ins, ear plugs, special bum bags (that’s a fanny pack if you’re American) you wouldn’t be seen dead in back in your home country but can’t be without when abroad, mobile phone charger thingies, exotic bandanas and those bright and eye-catching luggage tags you bought from Tiger so you could spot your suitcases a mile away on the carousel]. When we die, our families will find 400 travel plugs amongst our belongings and think we had some sort of weird fetish.
I decide that having worried constantly about this trip for two and a half years, I have literally run out of fucks to give. If I’m exploded by a terrorist mid-flight or eaten by a giant gnashing mega-shark then so be it. At least in the movie of my life it will give Kate Winslet some sort of Oscar-winning moment when she plays me (James McEvoy would play André of course).
The alarm has gone off and I am awake. I realise that André has not come to bed and has been up all night and is still packing. How one man can stretch the arrangement of a few pairs of pants, two pairs of swimming trunks, a travel towel and 6 identical Marks and Spencer t-shirts into a three day event is beyond me. Admittedly it’s a little more challenging for this vacation as we have opted for wheelie back packs rather than suitcases for practical reasons, but even so…
Our taxi is fifteen minutes early and André is now the one panicking. I am back in a zen place of acceptance of what is. Our taxi will wait, I tell him. I have allowed plenty of time.
André can’t do time. Outside of hitting his commercial deadlines, he wouldn’t even pass his GCSE time. If I want him to be on time for something I have planned, I have to pretend we need to get there two hours (minimum) earlier than we do. But I can’t pull this trick on him too often because he susses it out. Therefore I have to save it for the really important things. Our flight isn’t until 11:25am and I have allowed 1 hour and 25 minutes for a 1 hour journey to Heathrow giving us just over three hours to get through airport security and so forth. I have to allow an extra 10 minutes because the first thing I will need to do the moment I get to the airport is to pee and there may be queues at the women’s loos. 3 hours might sound like a lot of spare time, but airport security can be slow and I like a minimum of an hour and a half the other side of all the screenings to play my hypnotherapy mp3 via my iPhone so I can get myself into a more relaxed state for flying. And to eat. Because whenever I am travelling my belly a) is constantly hungry and b) can’t poop normally. In our family we call it ‘travel tum’. I think it’s a kind of anxiety about being away from home/the fridge. It’s not just reserved for air travel as I get it when we do any car journeys longer than an hour too. Even if I have eaten normal meals I HAVE to have travel snacks. It is probably a coping strategy my psyche has developed to deal with my phobia of just about every form of transport known to man. Although I don’t get it with canoeing. I’m not saying canoeing with snacks wouldn’t be nice, I just don’t get stressed canoeing. I’ve only canoed twice in my life and there aren’t many places in the UK you can get about just with a canoe so it is not possible for me to swap out the forms of transport that play havoc with my gut for the one form that relaxes me.
We kiss our daughter goodbye and run through all the checks. ‘Do NOT run on the stairs or wolf your food so fast that you choke. No one will be here to give you Heimlich Manoeuvre? Do you know how to give it to yourself in an emergency. That’s right – throw yourself chest first onto the floor or counter. Yes I know I say this every time we go away. Check in with your grandma regularly. Don’t forget to lock the house and close all the windows before you go out. Don’t forget to take your keys and phone when you go out. Remember to take phone messages from our clients. Make them SPELL out their names and read their phone numbers back to them to make sure they are correct. YES I know you’ve been doing that since you were five years old but don’t forget. If you’re scared call your grandmother. Yes I know you are nearly 21 not 8 but you still might get scared and lonely on your own. Please please water my orchids in the bathroom now and then. Not too much, they don’t like it. Eat healthily. Don’t just sit in your room on your computer all the time. Promise me you’ll exercise. No more than one takeaway a week. Please can you clean the house while we are away?’
(Yes, I know that last one is pushing it).
André is now panicking that he has forgotten something, particularly some kind of vital tool we might need for the installation. I remind him there will be builders on site and shops near by and once again AUSTRALIA IS NOT A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!!! They will have tools we can buy or borrow if needed. But we each have our own neuroses and I can hardly knock him for his when I have been ranting about terrorists and sharks for the last couple of years.
However, now I am zen traveller again. What will be will be. I am the embodiment of Grace Kelly cool and I have done my best to make sure it all goes smoothly. André falls asleep in the cab almost instantly so he can’t be that worried. It will all be fine.
Except it’s NOT fine because now the traffic has ground to an absolute halt for the last 50 minutes and I am so desperate for a wee I want to cry. This is eating into my hypnotherapy time the other side of security checks and potentially ruining the chances of me being able to buy snacks before we board. André says not to worry because we have paid to fly with Singapore Airlines who have won awards and there will indeed be plenty of free snacks on the plane. This is true. But the snacks will be under the control of scary air hostesses and this fills me with anxiety.
Some people have phobias of clowns. Some people don’t like dentists. I have a distinct mistrust of air hostesses. I think it is because they are the kind of women I can never be – immaculately dressed, with perfect hair and makeup and fingernails, perched perfectly all day on CLEAN scuff-free high heeled shoes regardless of turbulence on the plane, with constant access to snacks and yet well-maintained tidy figures (HOW?!!!) and a look of cold contempt for all people on their faces that radiates through their eyes even when they are smiling politely. I note that I’m not quite so intimidated by air stewards, so this is definitely a femininity war thing.
When we arrive and I have weed, we go straight to baggage check in. This has been replaced by some sort of computerised system you have to do yourself and print out a sticky loop label. I am so stressed by this time I actually cannot process the supposedly simple instructions. There is no human around to help us understand them. I am beginning to panic and when I eventually succeed in printing out a baggage label I tear off the wrong section and stick the wrong bit of the sticky thing to the wrong bit on my bag. When we go to hand it in I have to explain this to the lady behind the counter who looks at me like I’m three kinds of stupid and re-does it. This entire ‘automated’ process has taken about 30 minutes with queues of angry people everywhere getting it wrong. I am already swearing a lot.
We get to the other side of security after further queues and delays and I dash for the loo for the second time since we arrive. As well as travel tum that limits my ability to poo, I get travel bladder which means I need to pee every fifteen minutes. Heathrow airport has a machine outside the toilet where I have to rate my peeing experience according to how happy it made me on a scale comprised of happy and sad faces. I press the face that looks content but not joyous. It feels like a lie, but I don’t want the cleaners to feel I am disappointed in their work. The toilets are very clean at Heathrow but I still don’t feel right about grading the experience with a massive grinning smiley face button. I’m reminded of our dog, Teddy Spaghetti, who genuinely seems overjoyed after she has peed OR pooed and runs around in little circles kicking her feet back over what she has evacuated from her body. I wonder if we are meant to be that happy about toiletting. I sigh thinking it will be three weeks before we see our little dog again. Or maybe forever if I am eaten by a shark. How would you even try to explain that to a dog?
It is time to board and I just have a moment to grab snacks and a two-for-one travel pillow deal. This is because ‘travel pillow’ is another thing on ‘the list of lost holiday things’ that I have purchased many times in life but can never find when it comes to vacation time. We pass through the boarding gate and are herded through two separate doors – one for economy (ours) and one for first class and business class travellers. Why does this feel reminiscent of the Titanic? You dirty economy travellers can’t enter through OUR door! Back back you go! Know your place! We will not share our Business Class snacks with the likes of you, even if Kate Winslet is playing you in the movie version of your life!
I resist the urge to moo as I am herded onto and through the plane by beautiful air hostesses with hips as narrow as my neck, all wearing gorgeous Cheongsam style floor length dress suits. I try to smile at them in the hope that I can ingratiate myself with the guardians of the free snacks early on. They look through me as if I don’t exist whilst simultaneously expressing generic pleasant greetings to the bustling cabin of economy class travellers. I slink into my seat and perform the rapid ritual of trying to predict everything I might need from my cabin bag during the flight to stuff into the pocket in the seat in front of me before André stows the rest in the locker above our heads.
I have my earphones with my hypnotherapy mp3 ready to play. I have a limited selection of snacks. I have my ear plugs (which I will lose immediately in the big pocket or on the floor) and eye mask. I have moisturiser (cabin air makes my skin parched) and my lip balm (I never use lip balm, ever, but for some reason feel I need one to fly with. I will not use this. André will. For some reason even in long car journeys André’s lips dry up). I have tissues. I have a pen. I have my book. I genuinely do not know why I bring books on planes because I am always too nervous to read and it is just something extra to carry. If I try to read I find I am reading the same paragraph over and over again whilst not processing it. It is pointless. And yet I always bring one. It is part of the ritual.
I count the rows of seats to the nearest exits and try to calculate how many men, women and children I will need to climb over/kick out of the way in the event of an emergency crash situation to get to aforementioned emergency exits. I kid you not. I once read that statistically men survive airline crashes much more than women do because they literally barge for the exits regardless of the people in front of them or anyone in their way whereas women are more likely to stop and help or politely wait to exit in turn.
I always book seats near the wings so I do not have to trample too many people to survive. I look suspiciously and judgmentally at the men around me who might trample me en route to the emergency door if those statistics are to be believed…including giving a rather hard and suspicious look to André who is oblivious to my knowledge of these statistics.
I have a fancy screen and console in the seat in front of me full of hundreds of different kinds of entertainment just for me. I’m actually quite excited about this bit. Putting aside my fear of turbulence and terrorists, this is the part of the trip where I get to sit down for several uninterrupted hours for the first time in months, be able to watch films, be brought snacks and drinks and NOT have to work, not have to feel guilty about not working. It has been the bit I’ve been looking forward to the most. More than all the glories of Australia that (hopefully) lie before me. The opportunity to just sit down on a long haul flight, guilt free, and watch a load of shitty telly and sleep. Yes, I am that tired I probably would have paid the full flight cost even just to sit on the airport tarmac away from my work phone and email and the demands of our busy studio. I can have my snack and a nap and there’s even a cute fuzzy little blanky provided for me. This could well be awesome.
And suddenly we’re ready for takeoff. The holiday has begun!!!
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As absolutely wonderful and funny as ever but I want you to write out 100 times the words……
Traveller and travelling
Love Mum xxx
Thanks ma! Corrections now applied. I sometimes slip into American-English for no reason whatsoever.