Time/Travel

We've done it again: flung ourselves across the world in an aeroplane and wound up somewhere else, somewhen else. It's a bizarre thing to do, at once both numbingly routine and mind-bendingly exotic.

I get annoyed by some of it, obviously. The way the chap in front swings his seat back into my face before we've even taken off, for one thing. Another is the utter disconnection from the outside world; hopefully soon we'll look back, agog, at Internet-less flights the way we currently remember the days of smoking on planes.

The other thing that irks me is the way time goes out the window. Not the jet-lag inducing missing hours, but the lack of consensus. Time becomes fractured: some passengers are working off the destination time, others still clinging to where we took off from; some try to sleep immediately, some are determined to stay awake. And then there are the passengers who are making connections from or to a third continent and who knows what their clocks are set to.

The airline has its own ideas of course and will dim the lights, or serve you lunch in an attempt to help the transition. But all the while the sun or stars are peering in under open blinds, ever-shifting guides offering their own opinions.

The bare facts of our flight are that we left Houston at 4pm and landed 9 hours later in London at 7am. The advantage to losing six hours en route is that the journey passes very quickly, if only in hindsight.

My favourite bit of the journey is breakfast. It's the beginning of a new consensus. One can't argue with croissant and coffee and, with even just a light dusting of sleep, it is relatively easy to convince one's brain and body that some sort of night has been squeezed into the impossibly small space the schedule allowed.

Tell a lie, that's my second favourite part. The best bit is obviously getting out of Arrivals and into the grey concrete embrace of the Terminal 3 car park. If that sounds like sarcasm, be warned: I am VERY excited to be home again. The coolness of the breeze, the Belisha beacons, the indecent haste with which roads twist in the confined space, warping into an epidemic of roundabouts, these are the first delightful impressions of Britain.

And now we're safely with my in-laws. The boys are buzzing, full of energy, and the gentle sun is shining. The afternoon ahead offers the irresistible prospect of a quick pint with one old friend and a mad dash into London to see a show.

I couldn't sleep, even if I wanted to.