Anticipation...

…aka Abject Terror.

Believe it or not, I’m not actually that fond of flying except as a means to an end. It’s an exhilarating experience, in its own way; the feeling of no longer being chained to the earth, but free to soar above it, pointing out conglomerations of lights below, and dancing with the clouds while frost crystals fog up the windows. It is quite something else to see the curve of the earth gently sliding by beneath you while the weather touches you but lightly as you pass.

On the other hand…
What I suspect I have to look forward to is twelve hours of severe boredom, alleviated only by a few things…
My new book – this will be finished within three hours of take off (which I won’t have enjoyed, being of a nervous disposition with sensitive ears), and I will try to re-read the interesting bits, leading to further boredom during which I may doze off. Hopefully.
My magazine through which I will be leafing listlessly – no doubt full of twaddle, sex tips and fashion I would never wear, given that I prefer to look normal rather than frizzled, preened and dyed… It will also leak a noxious scent from some of its pages, leading to an immovable headache.
Following the tucking of boring, smelly magazine into the pocket in front of me, I’ll then watch a cheap film, which I shall be glad not to have paid to see in the cinema. The trouble with this, is that the person sitting in front of me (who will no doubt be large, snore and be constantly sleepy) will have his seat reclined back as far as possible, leading to me watching the film slumped in my own seat, head on one side, craning my neck like a demented chicken in order to watch a second-rate film on a small reflective screen. Hmph.
Once I’ve exhausted the possibilities of viewing-yoga, I shall probably attempt to amuse myself by remembering to put on my flight socks. This will take the best part of half an hour and is likely to involve me poking my neighbour in the eye with my elbow at least once, prodding the person on my other side with a stray foot and having finally grunted the wretched thing over my swollen leg, will realise that I have put it on the wrong way around and have to do the whole thing again. With accompanying responses from the people in the neighbouring seats.
Of course, there’s always the option of going for a Walk.
This will mean wandering around the plane in my back-to-front flight socks, navigating the other people on a Walk and then all ending up in a traffic jam behind the tea trolley, which we will all have missed as it picks us up in its tide and sweeps us past our seats. Added to the irritation of the tea trolley, we will now have to make our way around the entire plane again, possibly surprising a stray hostess behind a curtain as we lurch about trying find our seats on the second lap. Once I have finally found my seat, the poor airsick chap I woke up to squeeze past on the way out, will have fallen asleep again so I, loath to prod him awake again, have no other option but to take another turn around the plane and will no doubt become entangled in the toilet queue should I take a wrong turning.
Then it'll be time for food - probably tasty, inevitably shapeless, and indubitable nowhere near any mealtime of which I've ever heard, possibly an anti-brunch...? Of course, it'll be served with plastic cutlery just in case I should feel the need to stand up and run headlong into the cockpit... I dare say someone brandishing a small plastic spork at the pilot demanding to be taken to the middle east may be met more with merriment than handcuffs... As a weapon, it lacks a certain gravitas...

Of course, I’ll probably end up at the back over the engine where airsickness is practically mandatory, opposite the rear toilets (which will either block ten minutes into the flight or be occupied by a couple who have recently joined the Mile High Club), next to a woman of vast proportions and plenty of spare sweat, just in front of and at ear level to a screaming, vomiting baby…
Oh, such fun awaits!

;)