Terri’s flight was hours before mine, so I didn’t leave with her but pottered about getting ready to go. I’d been awake since whenever she’d got up, threeish? and although I’d packed already I knew not to leave much earlier than necessary. Time spent in the room in comfort and controllable lighting was a better idea than time spent in the clutches of the airport.Â
Everyone gets anxious about travelling now. Between cancelled trains and the paranoid paradigm of airport security there is a culture of anxiety, so when you bring your own to the situation it’s not out of place, but that doesn’t mean it will be ameliorated.Â
Once I was prepared I headed down to reception and asked them to get me a taxi. The drive was quick and uneventful. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by my own absolute preparedness. It was still very early, and I was starting to struggle with signage, so I made the dreadful decision to start checking in my bag rather than ask someone where Special Assistance was. Special Assistance is never well signposted, but if you use an airport more than once you know where it is. I’d never left from Dublin Airport before and the bag check was seductively easy so I got sucked in to the procedures that came next and those that came next and those that came next. It was fine. It really was. Very simple.Â
On arrival at Gatwick, however, I started to fail, and of course, since I hadn’t triggered the Special Assistance at this end by using it at the Dublin end there was no one to meet me. I struggled through, and eventually found that I had no way of finding Matt who was coming to pick me up. I had the luxury of not having to use the train to get back to Brighton but nowhere to tell him to come to. I asked for help, but by that time was more or less averbal. Not only did I have to explain my problem but I had to do it on a telephone and I had also to explain to a woman who wanted to put me in a wheelchair and take me to a flight that that wasn’t what was happening. After a terrifying journey down long and steep ramps I eventually found myself at the Special Assistance drop off point we came in at. I let Matt know where I was and he was there in five.Â
We spend a lot of time problem solving everyday tasks so I really didn’t need to tell him this sad story. I said that I’d had to emote to get my needs met and he could fill in the rest. He’d re-charged the cup holders in the car with cans of Coke and it was certainly the medicine I needed.
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