Ups and Downs (Day 190)
It is rare for me to be in a mood, but very occasionally there are ups and downs when travelling.
I woke up….in a mood. Poor Tim couldn’t do a thing right. Well, he did nearly leave his eye drops (again) at his brother’s and hadn’t done the check-in the night before. It’s funny how these petty small things can seem insignificant sometimes and a major disaster at other times. Ok – not a major disaster, I am exaggerating.
I was feeling down. Tim asked me a few times what was wrong. I did calmly say nothing as really there was nothing wrong. I just felt down. I know my usual disposition is being happy, but sometimes a girl just feels down or up or inside out. I could write that it’s because of a) jet lag, b) the loss of my Mum c) it was raining d) saying goodbye to the family. When we feel down, we have a tendency to analyse why. Why? We don’t analyse when we feel happy. I wasn’t concerned. It is all part of the colourful rainbow of life. Imagine a rainbow just blue (mmm…wrong colour to choose, we wouldn’t see it) ok, purple. It wouldn’t look so amazing. And it is just like our feelings, it would end up not so wonderful if we were static in our feelings 100% of the time. Anyhow, enough of me being down, we had a plane to catch to be up…up…up in the sky to Moscow then onto Tokyo.
We had booked the cheapest flight possible to Japan – using Aeroflot. Please remind me never to do this again. The first leg of our flight was in a small aeroplane, no films to watch and tasteless food. However, we did chat to a delightful young man Niharu who originated from Nepal, schooled in England and now working in Tokyo. He is a design architect and has a great project on the go with friends designing and constructing mobile homes that can be turned into joining units. (see his Instagram issui_sampo_mobilehouse).
Luckily, our changeover was not long and we actually left a tad earlier than the departure time. A larger aeroplane. Yes, it did have screens to watch a range of films, TV series and documentaries, however, the sound was appalling. I tried to watch The Post with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep but couldn’t hear a word that was being said. I did watch a documentary about Van Gough, put the subtitles on and turned the sound off – rather smart of me don’t you think?
We had two meals on the flight. My first one was exactly the same as the first flight, the second one was even worse. Now I am not a fussy eater, (apart from not eating meat) - the buckwheat porridge with tiny bits of apricot sounded almost appealing on paper, the reality was a different matter. Where’s the sick bag? I left it.
The good thing about this flight, as well as the amazing sunrise, was that there were loads of seats spare (I wonder why) so both Tim and I had 2 seats each – I am very good at doing extreme yoga contortion positions so managed to fold myself up and get some sleep. Tim didn’t.
Day 190 done and dusted. Ah – I feel better now.
