BACK IN BLIGHTY

This colonial relic is still getting to grips with the developed world and so my ruminations on the state of old and new worlds will have to await the unpacking exercise after coming home from the US trip. Gatwick Airport requires well-developed calf muscles and a firm resolve to escape into the open air no matter how difficult the maze. It took me more than an hour to burrow out. I had bought a pedometer on the plane (duty free) and should have attached it as I exited into the first tunnel. Hundreds of meters of, passages, escalators and delivery drops at every angle, designed for sheeplike passengers make the sternest Gym set-up look tame. I also learned this morning not to ask the way: I was twice directed down the wrong tunnel and but at last, oh blessed relief! I found the trains and ticket zone. Don't tell me I should read the excellent signposting and TV screens all over the place : there is nothing to tell you where the South Terminal is if you come into it from a different direction from the one you are accustomed to. `North' is all you can find when looking for a label that says `Trains'. It didn't help that after a sleepless night I forgot to look at the label - or even for its position - for baggage collection for my flight. Roll your Atlas and Axis cervical bones well, ninety degrees backwards to see the overhead signs for the carousel that delivers your luggage. A wasted half an hour watching suitcases roll out from their subterranean depths, in the company of sinewy youths in sleevless vests and crowds of well-padded and tanned holiday makers in family groups' apparel did not alert me to the fact that they had all landed from Orlando. My sedate co-passengers from the Newark flight CO18 had all seemingly vanished. My baggage, lifted from the carousel by now, was cunningly hidden behind yet another maze of poles and passages.
I got a taxi home from my station, caught up on a bit of sleep, tidied the house and postage-stamp sized garden. Now I sit at the computer honouring my promise to Parafeen to practise writing my blog every day until it becomes a thing of wondrous fascination, or at least a habit that obeys the fundamental rule for good writing: practise, practise, practise.