Day 1 - I have NOT been here before

13:30
I write this from the back of a cab on my way to Heathrow Terminal 4. WAY back in the day, maybe 25 years ago, I was a regular at T4, as it was BA’s main base of operations for the domestic flights I used to take on a regular basis for work. I spent a bunch of time working in Glasgow, Newcastle, Perth, Aberdeen - and was a frequent visitor to Terminal 4. These days though, with BA’s flights pretty much all using T5, Terminal 4 has become a bit of an odds and sods bucket, largely featuring airlines that don’t have an airline alliance. For me, today - that’s Kenya Airways. I’ve a 3 flight sector coming up, as I head to Windhoek in Namibia. Heathrow to Nairobi, on to Johannesburg, and then a short hop from Joburg into Windhoek. It’s about 24 hours end to end, and will doubtless be pretty knackering. I scored a brilliant deal on a business class fare, so should at least be able to get some half-decent kip.

I’m off for a little over 3 weeks, and am rabidly excited for the journey. I’m taking a road-trip across the spine of southern Africa - 2 weeks around Namibia, a week across the Okavango playing jump-rope with the border between Namibia and Botswana, and finishing up in Zimbabwe at Victoria falls. I’ll drive something like 3,500 miles, much of it off-road, or least on loose gravel roads. My vehicle is a pick-up truck - a Toyota HiLux. It’s modified to include a kitchen set-up and a fridge in the bed of the truck, and a tent on the roof. Yup - 15 of the next 20 nights will be spent in a small tent on top of my pick-up. Why up high? Well, that’s so the animals can’t eat you.

I’m flying (literally and figuratively) solo. I did ask if Vicki fancied the journey, and got a pretty quick and adamant, NO. Regular readers of this blog will know that whilst I adore travelling with my beloved wife, I’m also very happy to head out on my own. Road trips are very much my thing as well. So much to which to look forward…

18:45
My business class ticket makes my airport experience a breeze. Traffic’s none too bad on the way up to Heathrow, and I’m checked in / through security in fewer than 30 minutes. T4 is unrecognisable from my experiences of 25 years ago. That, or my memory has become so poor that it just doesn’t jog any memories.

I enjoy travelling in a premium cabin whilst dressed like the bastard offspring of a redneck and tramp. At several point along my way, airport workers give me a double take when they see my boarding card. I am DEFINITELY lowering the tone in the business class lounge - without even doing anything or speaking out loud. The lounge has both a decent sounding white and red, and I reason the only way to know which I prefer is to try both. The white is marginally the winner - a juicy blend from the Douro Valley in Portugal.

I have some work to finish off. It’s been years since I took a 3 week trip while gainfully employed. I always used to find that for a 2 week trip, it would take me at least 5 days to unwind from work, and for the last 5 days of the trip, I’d be winding back up. With a 3 week trip, the sweet-spot of properly detaching my brain from work multiplied by a factor of 3. I’m fascinated to discover whether that’s still the case. I don’t think it will be. Since joining PDRI, I’ve managed to maintain a much more detached relationship to my work. I still work hard, and I still care about the quality of the work that I do. BUT - I don’t feel the frustration in the same way, the (inevitable) failures don’t distress, and I’ve found over the past 18 months that I can slow down my brain much more effectively. Keeping fingers crossed the same remains true this time around.

I’m intrigued watching my fellow travellers. I listen in to… No - that’s not correct. I have no choice but to listen in to a very loud guy’s sales call that he’s doing from the lounge while he chugs down a Jack and coke. He honestly pulls out the line, “No really - trust me,” which is an interesting approach to sales technique. There’s a guy that’s very furtive. I find myself wandering what nefarious activity he’s got planned, then catch him having a crafty vape from the sleeve of his hoodie. I nod the nod of the co-conspirator.

Boarding time comes round pretty quickly, and I’m pleased with the plane/seat combo. It’s a 2-3-2 formation, so there’s a chance someone may have to climb over me at some point. I’ve picked an aisle seat on the middle bank to keep that risk to a minimum. The seat has tons of space, more legroom than I can possibly use, and feels pretty comfy. A lovely lady called Michelle brings me a glass of champagne and I sink down into the seat cushions…Read more