Sleep eludes me

Well, it is 18.36 at home and 02.36 at my destination and I am awake. I am awake and still five and a half hours out of Singapore. I have been awake since 04.00 UK time and not relishing the jet lag ahead. And, Kate Parry, it is not just a state of mind.

I tried to do things right. I adjusted my watch to the timezone of my destination. I ate my meal (a quite passable beef and ale pie with mash, peas and beans) washed down with a plane sized (small) bottle of Shiraz. I distracted myself with two films – RED, which was, well, distracting, and, Tamara Drewe, which was both entertaining and very distracting. She looks very tasty in those shorts. and even better out of them.

And, then I tried to catch some Zzzs while listening to the Smile High Club on the radio (close but no cigar). I rested for an hour or so but sleep escaped me.

Sleep escaped me because I am in cattle class on a very full Qantas flight from Heathrow to Singapore. I am awake because someone in the row behind me is snoring very loudly. I am awake because there is very little space and my knees are under my chin, this being the only position I can allow the blood to circulate and prevent the onset of DVT (yes dearest I have taken my aspirin). Sleep eludes me because there is very little space and the guy in the seat behind me keeps prodding away at his touch screen which happens to be at the back of my head. I am not asleep because there is very little room and the guy to my left is a brick shithouse of dubious Eastern European origin and is sitting with his legs akimbo like a highly undesirable position out of the Karma Sutra and keeps stretching and almost elbowing me in the face. I am not asleep because I am in an aisle seat and your average cattle class flier is bovine in proportion and keeps knocking my shoulder as they pass to and from the toilets. There must be something in the water because the loos are very popular despite the fact that they are beginning to smell like something you’d expect to find in a field at a rock festival.

So, I have just watched the Expendables, which would normally have put most people to sleep and am now listening to Tubular Bells in the forlorn hope that Mike Oldfield can bring sleep on.

I am beginning to feel a bit grumpy. I am annoyed with my company who expect me to fly for fourteen hours, during the weekend, in my own time, in the back of the bloody plane. The very same company that will expect me to be bright eyed and bushy tailed and weaving my magic with the Vice President of a global oil company in just a few hours.

And, to top it all there isn’t a single good looking member of cabin crew to be found.

Grrrrrrrr!

Post script – it ia now 21.36 at home and 05.36 in Singapore and they have just turned the lights on in the cabin. And I still haven’t slept. I even resorted to spoken word tapes. Not even A Tale of Two Cities could do it for me.

The trolly dollies are not improved in the garish light.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Post post script – and the buggers ran out of hot breakfasts! Muesli for Chrissake…..it’s enough to push a grumpy old man over the edge.