The Return
Who really wants to read or even write about the return home, but, for the record –
Beijing airport makes Xi’an train ticket hall look like a very orderly English bus queue, people and luggage trolleys every where, some with Bodicea like blades on the wheels. Monkey girl Leela falls foul of the check-in, her hand luggage bottle of rice wine is picked up and she is sucked back into the Chinese airport security system. She pops out of it some 15 minutes later, a bit chastened and sans wine, which they claim is now being sent on with the luggage.
The plane leaves at 1.15 and I watch with sadness as the ground of China slips away from under the jet. The trip back to Paris is in daylight, in the same direction as the sun, which only gradually overtakes us. The flight, all 11 hours, passes almost like a cocktail party (without the cocktails), standing chatting at the back of the plane (like all the best parties. . . in the kitchen), with a couple of good air France meals thrown in. Gina meets a London girls and they join the mile high club for the longest galley conversation in aviation history.
Charles de Gaulle, we stand for ages in the aisle of the plane waiting to disembark. Suddenly cardboard signs for AF128 To Birmingham our held up by Air France Stewards and we are whisked away in a mini bus followed by a pretty brisk walk through Charles de Gaulles halls and mansions (stewardess – "I do. "(say in a French accent) "I do not want to ‘ave to ask you to ruun, but zi gate closes in 4 minutes").
All those foreign romantic place names Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Xi’an Beijing, Paris, and now its Birmingham (though admittedly Birmingham international), Wolverhampton, Codshall, Telford, and Shrewsbury, and HACS number 1052 as Hill reacts to the taxi drivers grumpiness.
We arrive chez nous (wo men de jia ! ) and the fairy plumber must have been in whilst we were away, cos the plumbing problems I’d left seemed to have fixed themselves, the toilet flushes and refills. What a glorious welcome home and I celebrate by tearing off half a roll of toilet paper, throwing it into the pan and watching with pride as British plumbing sucks the paper away to start its own long odyssey.
