my last journey to Europe as an ‘official’ European...

Friday 17th January 2020 …

At the start of 2019 I vowed I would not set foot on a plane for the entire year. 2018 had seen me travel to Australia, China, Berlin (twice) and Malta, and I was tired. I managed to keep my vow. Now in January 2020 I sit in terminal five at London Heathrow waiting to board my flight to Berlin. The last time I did this it was July 2018, there was a fire in the control tower, the flight cancelled and BA literally abandoned me. I spent the night in a hotel in Slough, having been booked onto a flight the next morning. But at 2am I had a text saying that flight was also cancelled and the next flight would be the day after that, some 48 hours after my original flight. The BA helpline assisted me in finding a flight via a different airline. This was helpful and thus I arrived in Berlin only 24 hours late. However because I had taken a flight with another airline BA refused to refund the £118 I had to pay for the hotel.

Today, sitting with a cup of morning tea, the sun rising over the air field, I experience a sense of collective stress from the people surrounding me, and this took me back to that unfortunate evening and the very stressful and anxious 24 hours of abandonment. To be fair, with the amount of travelling I have been required to do over the last seven years, this was the first time I had been abandoned due to cancellations, but I think because it came at a time where my daily commute to London was severely disrupted by the new timetables - five months of chaos - I’ d had enough. Thus when, in 2019, I took my mother the Paris Open tennis for her 80th birthday, we travelled by train.

So how do I feel today? The journey to Heathrow and through security was smooth, easy and stress free. Everything ran on time and I do find terminal five one of the better terminals to travel from. However, as I took my passport out to check in, I was acutely reminded that this will be be my final journey to mainland Europe where my identify would be officially defined  as European. My passport is due for renewal this year, and whilst I found the old blue passport aesthetically pleasing, being European British is how I culturally identify; Writers, Philosophers, Art and Artists, Architecture, Languages, Values.... this has been taken away in a manner which leaves me feeling ashamed to be defined as British. And what I witness around me this morning confirms that feeling.

At the end of 2019 I was full of hope for 2020. Little did I realise that, whilst I remain trusting in better, an overwhelming sense of abandonment would be the theme that, I believe, will accompany me through 2020, whereby I search for and find my way to live in the next decade. As I wrote that last sentence a further cup of tea was delivered to my table. I am reminded that there is always tea and the experience of writing whilst taking tea, is always revealing.