2014: Depression - an illness. Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we?

This is a post about mental health. I hurt myself badly this year through depression. And then I broke myself physically. Another post about that to follow. And it all started with a stubbed toe.

This year we did some major renovations to our flat. When I say 'we' I mean 'I' of course. My husband's idea of a renovation is changing a broken light bulb. or taking down the Christmas tree (in April). (I can confirm that April is, in fact, well after twelfth night, and thus you superstitious types might want to clutch your lucky(? for whom?) rabbit's foot as you continue to read.)

Flat à la Manhattan, and piano (just seen)

I decided to bring a touch of Manhattan to our London home, so with the help of our DIY Tzar Tris, I drilled and took off the plaster from our hall wall, exposing beautiful multi-coloured bricks beneath. I repainted the hall, living room and toilet walls, and framed and hung many pictures, photographs and mirrors to offset the stark white setting I had created. I varnished and stained tables and chairs, bought cushion covers and rearranged furniture. And then, transformation almost complete, one happy Sunday near the end of June, for no reason at all, I moved our piano - as if purposefully - into my left little toe.

Firstly, of course: "OWWWWWWW!"

Definitely NOT walking into the centre

But secondly, necessarily, Google for NHS advice and thirdly a trip to our oh-so-appropriately named 'walk-in' centre for a toe check up - was it broken? Was there anything that could be done, other than grimace and hobble? Apparently not much. Strapped up - my little toe to its bigger next door brother, that was it. However, dear reader, little toes are still very large in the area of pain, and a right royal pain it was - not only literally, but through the subsequent sartorial limitations. I'm talking about SHOES. The mothership of fashion in my view. SHOES. I-COULD-NO-LONGER-WEAR-ANYTHING-BUT- UGGS. Like, total disaster, babe. Tyra dissed them in season 3 of ANTM. Ugh [sic], What to do, yeah?

Uggs? Nooooo!

Luckily I found a pair of plimsolls - coincidentally these were Uggs too  - but shoes not boots - that I could wince - less - around in and off I went. 6 week recovery. Not really an illness at all. Simples.

Unfortunately life didn't quite work like that.

In my previous post I talked about loneliness and moving back from New York. Such was my loneliness and feeling of isolation and lack of support that I began to suffer a severe episode of depression, which started early 2013 and continued well into February this year. During the worst of this time I spent all the time I could in bed, or watching television catatonically.When I wasn't crying from loneliness or just plain sadness, that is. I worked though the struggle to do so was immense, every day a new battle to just survive it. I found social situations exhausting and stressful, and sleeping became fitful at best. Fortunately I found help - a (UK) doctor who prescribed medication and cognitive behavioural therapy to treat the symptoms, while I managed the move back home to the UK. And gradually I felt better and able to go out into the world again: I mostly slept through the night, I saw friends, I exercised.

The road to recovery

At the time of the toe incident, and while still being treated with medication for depression, I was working for a client and having an increasingly hard time. My job means going into tricky situations, this no exception, but the difference here was that two of the people at the place I was working - third party people (i.e. not from my company or the company I was consulting for) - had taken such violent affront to me that life at work became very tough.

Let me just talk about my job for a second. It is to advise. It is to think through solutions and share them, and ask for input. It is to join a team and work with them towards a better company - better outcomes, people, changes. It is to get things done. That is my job. And finally, let's consider that I am not a 21 year old wet-behind-the-ears graduate with the sounds of a sticky-floored nightclub ringing in my ears. I am nearing veteran status as a consultant, I work bloody hard and I know what I'm talking about - or when I don't I say so, or keep schtum.

Making stuff happen. That's what I do.

These two women decided a week and (in one case) a day after meeting me that they did not like me or want me around. Fine. We all meet people we wouldn't socialise with outside of work, but with whom we need to get on with. And, for goodness sake, I cost a lot of money - so it would be foolish not to use me.

Still, perhaps they were fools. Within a single day I was demoted in my role to fill the most junior status imaginable; I was also seated in a building 10 miles from where they worked. Only two others from our twenty-plus sized team worked in this building, and were often elsewhere, leaving me alone, in the Midlands, even though it cost £500+ a week to get me there on the train, let alone hotel costs. I was physically and deliberately isolated from them. If I worked at home I was criticised for not being ' visible': interesting how you can be more physically visible working 10 miles away than 100 - I haven't been able to understand how that works.

Eventually they seemed to understand that I could in fact do more for my money, and I worked on a single piece of deep research. Alone. No guidance - I wasn't granted the pleasure of answers to my phone calls or emails. Fine - not the way I wanted it but I did it. But again, I was isolated. I was disinvited from meetings; I was criticised in the office, or only spoken to to disinvite me from yet another meeting or to comment on my appearance: "I couldn't get one leg in that."

Not the most fun project ever

I'm afraid that now I will stoop to that level of personal comments - which I feel are unprofessional - to help you imagine these two vicious persons I am grateful no longer to be acquainted with. For this I turn to Roald Dahl, who perfectly describes one of this pair (who were both female - I imagine still are) in James and the Giant Peach: "(Aunt Sponge) was enormously fat and very short. She had small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and one of those white flabby faces that looked exactly as though it had been boiled." Copy this but make the other woman tanned with massive false eyelashes - not, unfortunately, massive enough to complement her chubby cheeks and grotesque exterior, and you have the pair. If doughnut scoffing were an olympic sport, I'd fancy these for the GBR gold and silver.

Sponge and Sponge 2 (No Spiker.)

Shunned by silence on the few occasions I was in the office by these two 'colleagues'; whispered about; isolated and spoken to only rarely, I of course shared this with my superiors, but the fact was this: I was being bullied. When I asked for help I was advised it was 'inappropriate to show stress'; another person said it was 'as much my fault for not bringing it up sooner.' And another has admitted to me since that I could have equally been criticised for requesting to stay and fight it out or admitting defeat and requesting to leave. I felt trapped.

Bullying. Evil. Always has been. Always will be.

As a child, I was bullied at 5, at 10 and at 14, very badly. I thought I was over it. Clearly not. My depression - which had been under good control, no longer needing CBT, seeped back little by little. I found it hard to go to work, knowing an empty office would await me, and little likelihood of much work-related interaction. Knowing I would have to try to speak to those two women who refused to interact with me.

Unfortunately this could only be maintained so long

It got worse and worse. Isolation grows like weeds around an empty gravel patch and suffocates the other life that could potentially live there. I left to walk for lunch and would bite my lip to try to stop the tears coming - every day, and clock watch the minutes to take me home and to bed. I suddenly found it hard to socialise again. Running became a trial, as if someone were constantly pushing at my head. Going out was exhausting. I was becoming catatonic again.

Finally I could barely hold myself together through the day - though I had taken not a single day off - it was becoming harder and harder to start the day at all. I didn't want to go to work. I didn't want to live.

I refer again to the description of myself at work. I am someone whose job it is to get things done, and that is what I did. I made an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist - yes, my doctor is a psychiatrist. I asked my GP to refer me to him (as I had been privately paying for him before) to apply for medical insurance and finally, I asked and agreed with my psychiatrist to admit me to hospital. I could not go on any longer.

Here comes the rub. Mental health as an illness. I was absolutely terrified of anyone at work knowing the truth; I feared stigmatisation after the feedback to not demonstrate stress at work. And I feared it because before I had been shunned after (once - ONCE) crying at work. The next day I was rolled off a difficult project at the end of my term, rather than extended. I wasn't consulted. And I felt sub-human because of it.

I got better, though. Two weeks in hospital and a lot of day patient care and I felt ready to try life out again. The doctors and staff who treated me were amazing. Thank you to my friends whom I emailed to tell of this at the time. You have been incredibly supportive and amazing. You visited me in hospital and brought me wisdom and love - and even though I can't love myself in this state I re-read your emails and keep trying to accept myself just a little bit more.

Today is World Mental Health day and I am coming out. I am someone who has depression. I take medication and get help for it. And I can work and operate as a normal person with that help - and hopefully, soon, as in the past, without it. Please don't patronise me by treating me differently because of this. Please don't make decisions for me. If I had broken my leg, you wouldn't start treating me differently at work. You would sympathise but you wouldn't stigmatise. So please don't. I have an illness and it is being treated. If I need help I'll get it. I don't want it to define me and I don't want to be 'the one with depression'. I'm as funny, intelligent, driven, annoying, ridiculous etc. as I always was - as I was 1 minute ago before you knew. Please think about that.

But workers, everywhere, and mostly, leaders, and future leaders. Please recognise mental health for what it is. Something that is challenging, difficult and takes time to heal, but does not and should not preclude suffers from being just like you. Look around. Maybe there is a leader among you who is excelling in spite of it. And don't send flowers for just physical illnesses. Mental illnesses are just as serious and real.

Depression is the curse of the strong, so it's more than likely that in our country where 1 in 4 people have a mental health problem, you know many people who might be suffering - perhaps in silence. Let's end the stigma together. I am standing up. Please stand with me - and my friends.We are all standing close to you now.

Belatedly, Farewell New York - January 2014

Farewell, beautiful Manhattan

In January this year many things changed. After many months, searching myself for the answer, I made a decision and moved back from New York to London, leaving behind my life in New York: my job with some of the best people I know, my small group of great friends, and every jewel in this mesmerising city's crown. I also left my beautiful apartment, whose decoration to (my own) stylish perfection ebbed away with the disappearance of one piece of furniture here, a Goodwill donation there, and finally, moving day, where the entire apartment was magicked away, back to the bare hard-wood floors and white walls I had sat with a few days on moving to the city.

Bared All

I sat on the floor with a single glass for water remaining of all my household possessions. In a few short hours, the apartment became the anonymous shell I moved into, my presence erased.

A life in boxes

Removal men took each piece of my New York existence. Down four flights of stairs and out into the coldest New York day I can imagine, Blizzards from the previous day departed, icy winds roared through the blocked city, and clear skies encased Manhattan in a giant frozen snow globe.

Bus with icicles on a walk to 51st street

In New York, the city they say never sleeps, I sometimes doubted that existence. New York might not be sleeping, but how easy it is for its people to sleep walk through it. In truth, New York was at times the loneliest place on earth I could imagine, The desert is true to its name; so too the great plains or the frozen wastelands of the arctic.

The coldest days

These places conjure desolate landscapes - no people, no life. But where there is so much - perhaps too much - life, New York,  and one's involvement in that life is too often limited to the arrival of your takeout, and a three second encounter with the delivery guy, it's hard to remember that you are part of the world at all. A life can be packed up or tossed out like an unwanted Christmas tree after twelfth night.

After the festival comes the felling

A million New York faces were always rushing somewhere. I passed them silently. They did not see me. Perhaps no one saw them either. Albert Schweitzer said: "We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness." I had to go home. I had loved Manhattan's brightness and mysteries with my husband, family and friends accompanying me on their trips from England. As a married woman living alone three and a half thousand miles from me, however, finding enough friends to fill the void and provide my nuclear support proved impossible. The support I needed was ready-made in another place, and eventually I had to give you up, beautiful Manhattan, for my home - where my beloved is - and leave you to your interminable lonely rushing, changing and searching.

My bijoux apartment; decorated with love

Better, then to be on the move. Moving around with the (lonely?) crowds, hurtling or gliding imperceptibly towards something, and away from something else,

My sadness abounded. mixed with anticipation for a permanent reunion with my most missed husband, and my friends and family. Bittersweet. Many things I did 'for the last time'. Eating and drinking high on the list, I admit, but walking by the reservoir, seeing Chagall at the Jewish Museum, and visiting Moma and Bergdoff's. Even alone I found them as beautiful as always. And the style. Walking through the streets in my duvet coat and hat, I epitomised winter dressing for the average New Yorker. So much so that to my delight I was sometimes seen - asked for directions, recommendations, information. Apparently I must know. You just had to look at me to realise it.

Penthouse view

I'll write a separate post of favourite food and drinking establishments - and of favourite places in general, I may never see my laundry server, Jeanie, again. I was leaving for London; she for Austria to be married. I don't know if I'll be able to get $15 manicures again, with only a small extra amount for the best back rubs ever. And I had my hair cut for $20 for the last time. I think that one's a dead cert for finality.

Third Avenue and E89th in the snow, January 2014

And some for the first - seeing (and hearing, of course) La Boheme at the Met with my friend Alex on the coldest night of my life. The star lights rose to the sky and I heard the most beautiful music of loneliness in the only place fitting. With those lonely characters I wasn't alone anymore. I was part of their world.

I ended my time with the best of Manhattan - with my friends. Le Bistro Chat Noir will forever be my last tango with Manhattan dining in that period of residency. No Anna Wintour, but pink Champagne and delicious lunch with my wonderful friends Dave and Kari. A lovely send off for the British woman who dared to dream of Manhattan. To them I say thanks for being true friends and supportive while I lived in Manhattan - and also for helping me up the restaurant stairs with my bags and into my last yellow cab for a while.

Herding cats at Le Bistro Chat Noir

One final glass of Champagne at the airport and then home. Farewell and Au Revoir Manhattan. I hope that we meet again.

Colour, Culture and Cows: Chennai

Unexpected business trips go part and parcel with the life of a consultant, particularly in our increasingly global workforce. Admittedly, though, it's more often that Cleveland, or Cincinnati form part of this plan. A short plane ride; a rental car and drive through a nondescript suburb to an equally nondescript hotel. Ho-hum. Another day. Another dollar. So when I received an email from my boss beginning, "Can you go to Chennai next week...?" this was something of a different - and thrilling - proposition.

Shopping Companions on the OMR

And Cleveland it was not. Thirty degrees and humid, at 3:30am, I might have heard crickets or the hum of night time insects, were it not for the hundreds of people thronging outside the airport, apparently unaware that it was the middle of the night, a time I usually reserve for sleeping (or at least for insomnia, if sleep isn't forthcoming). Not here. As if in the middle of the day, huge families awaited their arriving relatives; swathes of white-shirted taxi drivers thrust high their greeting cards to find their target passengers. I had somewhat expected this, and knowing that it would be the middle of the night and I would be in culture shock and shattered by the flight, I was grateful that one of those cards was meant for me, and that soon we drove away from the constant voices and beeping horns into the night.

School Time!

The omnipresence of people in Chennai is not limited to airport arrivals. From what I have seen of India after a very short time there, people are travelling and working when they need to, at any time when their work is required. At every time of day I ventured out, people walked along the streets to school, to eat, to work, to pray, milling about among the stray cows and dogs who were their constant roadside companions.

 The sprawling city of Chennai stretches far beyond the confines of what could be described as the centre. Added to this, the growing technology industry in India has necessitated the growth of buildings in equal measure: offices to house the workers; hotels to house the business travellers. So, on the Chennai OMR IT Expressway, suddenly from the darkness we emerged to towers bearing very familiar names - PayPal, Cognizant and so on. And even past familiar lunch joints, though with a local twist for branding and menu options.

Subway, Chennai Style, in Tamil & English

In my short visit, I met business men and women whose commute took them two hours each way - daily. I balk at a commute longer than 2 hours where I don't stay overnight. These hardy souls travel by public transport in soaring temperatures to their offices each day. I choose the simplest and shortest method of transport possible. These workers travel by bus (for the most part) with hundreds of other passengers. Standing, often, and traversing Indian roads - main roads - where road markings are treated universally as less a guideline, more a coincidence and traffic lights less a system of road safety, more colourful decorations.

Onam Festival Floral Decoration

 It's not hard to believe that might be true in a country filled everywhere with beautiful colours. Even in the poorer areas that I saw in Chennai (and in Mumbai, which I visited at the weekend), there was colour. Where in the western world's hotels or offices would you find a beautiful decoration of floors and coloured sand to mark a local festival? Or a flower of white sand outside the Indian equivalent of The Gap to welcome you? I spent long days working - too long to experience much outside of the hotel and immediate surroundings of the office, but it is impossible to miss the culture and beauty of the honours accorded to faith, gods and festivals wherever you look.

Lunch is on Gandhi

I left for my return trip as I had begun to experience India - in the middle of the night. Away from the IT giants' offices and neighbouring hotels, into darker roads flanked by the great pools of water on either side and the tiny temples unique to south India. Finally we arrived at the airport, a glittering diamond of light and glass breaking through the darkness. But that airport is a product of the west. Its cultural virtues amount to a lump of coal compared to the diverse beauty of the colourful houses surrounding it. Flying out of Chennai just after dawn, the blues, oranges and greens of the houses paint the city's landscape far more, and the verdant hills and countryside beyond are beautiful and still, like a perfect prayer.

In the (British) Summertime

The beer garden. The sun is out and the British are drinking.

British summertime. Generally speaking, this is an oxymoron. Still, for a few choice days in the summer the lucky, lucky few who haven't fled in desperation to the south of France, the coastal tourist towns of the Greece and Turkey or Ibiza (why, I have no idea) there might be the odd day where the grateful, sun starved Brits can be heard wandering around exclaiming: "It's too hot." "I don't like this heat." "I need to sit down in the shade, I'm too warm, me."

Anyone for tennis? You can't escape it!

Much like the rest of British culture, summertime has grown into its traditions. For the classic British experience, consider heading to south west London for a spot of tennis. That is, if you can get a ticket. For those flash with cash, purchase a ticket or two before the day itself and rest assured that you'll only have to rub shoulders (literally) with the masses while you grope your way out of Wimbledon station with a billion other hopefuls.

Option two. You can't really see the eccentricity in action here, but believe me, it's happening. 

No ticket? No problem. You now have a couple of different choices. Option one: join another great British tradition: the queue. Yes, you lucky daytrippers, not only are you in with a small chance of seeing a great British tennis legend lose in the semi- or final against an eastern European stud; you can also experience the joyful agony of standing in line endlessly with scarce a hope of a ticket behind a six foot 20 stoner from the home counties. Or perhaps you'd prefer option two: Again, you might need to queue. Well, we don't like to disappoint our visitors. If the tennis gods are in your favour, you can then join a menagerie of pale, British eccentrics to sit 50 feet from the actual action and watch the entire thing on a big TV. Woe betide you leave your spot to find the loo. This is every man for himself, and you won't find that seat when you come back.

At least stock up on some or all of these while you stand in your queue of choice.

(Let's not forget to mention that whichever of the two delectable choices you decide upon, you'll also need to be in line around 4am, drenched in sunscreen, balancing your need to quench your dehydrated self against the increasing desperation to find the nearest loo.)

Unappealing ways to spend your British summer #44

Of course, over the past couple of decades other grass-based summer activities have found their niche in the hearts of the British. Forty years ago, a dairy farmer with a taste for the blues decided to host a free music festival on his land. And forty years later, you can pay the price of a small Tuscan villa for a ticket and enjoy all the delights of trudging through mud with your loo roll in hand to queue (yes, we don't like to leave anyone out) with thirty thousand others for the one working portaloo on the site. And showers, well, they're for wimps. Whack on your wellies and get sloshed whilst sliding around a field in your most stylish "I may work in Canary Wharf but I'm a hippy at heart" three thousand quid distressed t-shirt and shorts.
And remember that you have to get there first. Along the never-intended-for-heavy-traffic single file A roads. Good luck to you all.

Too hot? Fear not. We're just days away from this.

If neither of these incredibly expensive forms of self torture float your proverbial boat, perhaps it would be best to spend those precious seconds of British summer closer to home. No, I'm not talking about caravans or camping. A whole other long blog post waxing lyrical on Kenneth Williams and Babs Windsor. I'm talking about those other great British staycation essentials. Marks and Spencer's. And the pub. Or one of them. On  a beautiful sunny day there's really nothing that quite beats a picnic-style banquet of little sandwiches, mini (Scotch) eggs and sausage rolls, washed down with delicious cloudy lemonade and ginger beer. (You'll definitely still need the sunscreen. But lie ins are a possibility, and if you choose somewhere with a toilet nearby, well, what more could you wish for?) And it'll be raining and cold in a couple of days. Now then, time to put the fan on and close the curtains. It really is too hot.

Party in the city where the heat is on

Welcome to Miami

Miami Beach and English roses shouldn't mix, perhaps. But since they invented factor 30 to, well, 80, I felt encouraged to brave the heat for the pool, the beach, the beats and the cabanas.

 Pool Party

 The beach along the east side of Miami Beach is breathtaking. Turquoise waves crash to shore (it's windy here, so better for water sports than west Florida). It's not hard to imagine why New Jersey father and son Henry and Charles Lum were so captivated that they decided to buy much of the island, back in 1870. Yes, I confess, if I had a few quid to spare; if I had won the Power Ball last night...(unlikely since I didn't buy a ticket) I would definitely be thinking of a small pied à plage here.

Hideaways at the W South Beach

 If Gatsby circa 2013 took a trip to Miami Beach, I think he might have taken a suite (or four) at the W South Beach hotel, my Saturday night residence. He could probably still have shown them a thing or two, but this hotel is all about decadence - an adult playground par excellence. Lounge by the pool while the resident DJ plays a series of chilled out (but on the verge of partying) tracks. Dip in the pool or dip your tortilla chips into freshly made guacamole. Sun yourself on one of the loungers or sip more cocktails. (Incidentally, there was a disappointing lack of umbrellas in drinks here, but no doubt the Carlyle can supply those for the camper contingent.)

Miami by Night

Never one to shy away from the local attractions, it was great to try out the resident Bliss Spa for a 75 minute massage. Definitely worth the five days of running that I got in last week! The spa was an interesting experience from the inside of the hotel - a separate elevator takes you to check in (you take the hotel elevator to the fourth floor, then walk to the Bliss elevator...down again to two...then back up (in a different elevator again) to the massage room. Labyrinthine relaxation? So it would seem.

Miami Beach Waking Up

Post massage, I took to the private area of the beach to lounge by the waves. Of course, there's no accounting for your neighbours. A stag party (bachelor party, whatever) on my left, already in the annoying "Dude"--"No, Dude!" phase of the day with their Coors light and tasteless Bermudas. And on my right high powered ladies drinking prosecco and bitching about the CFO. (Lose the prosecco and that could have been just another work chat...)

Sand Bar...Beach Bar

Fortunately or not, these conversations were cut short by the arrival of darkening clouds and thunder, so I headed back to my suite to enjoy views of the lightning and listen to the rain from a dry haven. They certainly know how to organise their rooms at the Ws I've stayed at (Chicago and South Beach so far). Admittedly I had an upgrade this time (I used my hotel points...a lot of them...for this stay) and therefore was greeted by a suite of rooms twice the size of my apartment in New York, and I think, also, bigger than my place in England.

Kitchen to Balcony. Just one of the rooms with a view

The suite has its own amusements. Two toilets, TV & DVD room, that's in addition to the TV in the main lounge and the one in the bedroom; complicated lighting structures; lots of (super expensive) hotel booze and snacks lying around. And two balconies. Thank you, I'll take that.

Sunday morning check out is regimented here at 11am - which didn't quite allow for the lie in merited by the comfy bed listening to the waves. They've thought of that, though, so a hospitality suite is available for the beach-hungry, even after check out. And I took advantage of the complimentary car service to explore other parts of Miami beach with the lovely Pedro. Including the beautiful house outside which Gianni Versace was shot. Colourful, Miami? Indeed. 

Versace's Last Stand - beautiful house

This blog has turned out to be a review of the W South Beach mainly, and that's because there are so many different aspects to talk about. As someone who definitely does not relax well, a place with pretty much everything here is wonderful. I can find seating under the trees for quiet, lounges / day beds by the pool for chilled out music listening and people watching, loungers by the sea for tanning (other people's) and sea sports, and several bars and restaurants. And of course, my own sweet suite. Let's come back here, friends!

Flights, and flights of wine.

There's something about travel that brings time into entirely new dimensions. I stand on the railway platform and a three minute wait becomes a lifetime. I watch the seconds counting down to the point where the train is supposed to pull into the station. The clock reads 8:19:01, 02, 03... It seems to slow time down. Are the people around me sipping their coffee more slowly, flicking the pages of their throw away commuter-rags at stop-motion speed? It seems that way.

 Up with the sun

These days, of course it’s more about airport travel. At around 4.30am on a Monday, or 3pm on a Thursday (in situation normal) I get up and get out to the airport. And then the fun begins. Have you seen Up In The Air? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as slick as George Clooney at getting through security without seamless unloading and reloading of various items. I try my best: laptop out and in a bin by itself. (“Yes, I know!” I scream silently at the security attendants. “I do this every week. I know your name, Jerome, and we’ve been here before!”) Shoes off. Of course in the summer this is extremely pleasant. I love reaching the airport at 5.15am only to realise I’m sharing my foot germs with 3000 other travellers as I walk through the security screening.

 Happiness is an on time PM flight home with a G&T

The time to get to the gate is paramount. To get settled. To eye up the competition for upgrades (no chance of this on a commuter flight at 6am; every chance at 1pm travelling with grandparents, college students and weekenders. If it’s the afternoon I may seek out a glass of wine or a G&T. If it’s the morning I just want to sit down and be quiet, away from the children running around screaming and the non-frequent fliers who don’t appreciate the silence that is the code of the regular business traveller.

 The road home...on a wing (and not) a prayer

Before that comes the security clearance, which is always fun. Firstly, I now really enjoy the contemptuous death stares “How dare you be in a priority lane? You clearly don’t deserve it even if you’ve spent $50,000 on travel this year..” which (being British and a lapsed catholic I so enjoy).
On various days the fact that I wear a Nike fuel band is either: a) something that means I need to be patted down for having, and delays me; b) something that I am told I don’t need to take off or c) something that Mr / Ms. Security feel a burning need to chat about. Which is fine, unless I’m in a TravelRage™ in which case I need to be cheerfully ignored.

Delta Blues. And not even in Economy Comfort 

And then there’s the rest of it. In airports a lot of people are having fun getting paralytic-ally drunk. Depending on the time of day, I might be one of them. However, at 7am I’d be unlikely to be joining in with the guy next to me in first (OK, so I got upgraded) who ordered back-to-back screw drivers. This is not too bad depending on how bad the accompanying behaviour is. It’s not great if the screwdrivers are accompanied by fried eggs and ‘home fries’ (little roasted potatoes, heavy on the grease, for you non-Americans). Grease+Eating Sounds+Alcohol = we might as well be going to Ibiza. Why not take off your shirt into the mix? Why not start singing? Why not take both the arm rests?

Today I find myself in the unusual position of travelling back on a Thursday, which my work commitments haven't permitted for a long while. I have, however, forgotten the Travel Gods' rule number one for Thursday trips home: the weather will be AWFUL. No matter it was 80 degrees (that's upper 20s, Celsius enthusiasts); no matter that there was not a cloud in the sky. That was Wednesday. Today is Thursday, and you're going home, which means rain, snow, freak tornadoes, hail, hurricane strength winds. Fun times for all.

Hooray for flights of wine

So here I find myself. It's 5.20pm. My flight leaves at 5.25. Oh, sorry, I mean is *scheduled* to leave at 5.25. It's currently floating between the 7pm-8pm mark. I'm just hoping not to be re-routed to Philadelphia and left there to fend for myself (thanks to my friend B who kindly let me share his ride to Manhattan).If anyone is in any doubt that consulting is glamorous let this decide you. There's only so long you can be jet set before you have to throw the towel in and check in to yet another hotel because you're so tired of the travel delays that you can't take anymore. And with that, why yes, I'll have another flight of roses. It is the summer after all, even if all evidence is to the contrary in NYC. Cheers.