Flight From Hell

I´m pretty well below my normal energy levels, still on the third week struggling with congestion and coughing. I finished my wonderful cough syrup (they say it´s got morphine in it, which sounds somehow beneficial to me right now), but I have noticed that a substantial glass of vodka before bed pretty much does the trick as well. I have learned that sleep promotes healing, and being an astmatic, my colds usually last a lot longer than most people´s.

Anyway, I thought I´d pull myself together and write something about "Garment of Shadows" by Laurie R King, my second vacation read. I didn´t finish it while on Fuerteventura, and it´s very good luck that I managed to finish it at all. I was reading it on the plane home you see, and that was decidedly the worst flying experience of my life. It was actually worse than when one of the engines broke down over Italy and we had to do an emergency landing in Rome, in terms of my personal discomfort.

Husband playing with his new Iphone is the reason for this photo.

I was sitting in the middle seat, with my husband to my right, by the window, and a very fashionable young lady to my left. Because my throat hurt pretty badly, my husband talked me into indulging in some alcoholic beverages, something I don´t normally do. So I started with a G&T, and after dinner I procedeed with an Irish Cream. Which I managed to tip straight into my lap. All over my e-book-reader. It´s not much in those small bottles, but it somehow becomes more when it´s smeared all over you. In the process, my waterbottle fell to the floor, and the kind lady got up to help me retrieve it. And as she did, her own glass of G&T tipped into her seat, creating Lake Tonic there. I wasn´t even near the glass, but of course I was totally to blame. It took most of my paper handkerchiefs to dry out her seat, the attendants came with a blanket for her and I really think that in the end she, and her elegant clothes, were pretty much unscathed. I offered her another drink, but she politely declined.

After that, my husband´s waterbottle fell to the floor. It rolled in far under his seat and gingerly, I folded myself (no doubt while the pretty lady held on firmly to everything) down and with a bit of an effort managed to get it out, while giving my ribs a not inconsiderable squeeze. "I think I cracked a rib there", I said as I came up with the runaway bottle. "No", said my husband, "you broke my plastic glass against the seat in front of me. With your skull." I even think I heard an ungreatful sigh when he said this, so I returned to my reading (it had taken all my wet tissues to clean the e-book-reader from the syrupy stuff).

And having done so is probably the reason I could finish it at all. This press-action while the keyboard was still damp kept the keys I need for basic reading moveable. Unlike the rest of the keyboard, which is now completely glued stuck. "It´s the capillary action", said my husband. "I thought that might happen."

And as if that wasn´t enough, when the two male flight attendants came to collect payment for the taxfree wares, one of them dropped the credit card reader (you know what they are like, the size and weight of old 80´s car phones) on the head of an elderly lady two rows in front of us. You know how babies often scream when you go in for landing and their ears hurt? That´s what she sounded like. Shocked, hurt, angry. The attendants didn´t handle it well either, as far as we could see. And the girl in the seat in front of me was generally terrified of flying, being soothed by her father and boyfriend on either side of her, and her mother kept looking on worriedly from the other side of the aisle. I was so relieved to step off that plane.

And having told you that story, I am too tired to write about the book. Will put that off until tomorrow.