I'm somewhere over eastern Europe,cruising in a Cathay Pacific Boeing at 31,000 feet and heading towards Prague. The cloud cover is almost total and the few breaks in it reveal that the landmass beneath us is snow covered.
It's early January and several months since my simple life in south western France changed forever.I'm beginning a journey that will take me three months and to places as far apart as Hong Kong, the Philippines,South Wales, Paris and Andalucia.
For now, the western edges of Europe are enjoying are enjoying mild, unseasonal weather.Claude, my neighbour in our little French village, mails me, 'C'est déja le printemps,on est content'. The skies for those who live beneath the giant plane must be constantly grey with the threat of more snow, 'encore la grisaille' as the French say when at home the short grey winter days deprive us of the sunshine and the incredible luminosity that normally characterises our part of the world for the major part of the year.
The clouds below us resemble a strange land, a magical land of snow covered hills, valleys and plains which stretches away in the distance. No cloud breaks now, only that strange cloud land as we leave Prague unseen somewhere below us and head towards Warsaw.
Steady at 31,000 feet.I wonder, do airline pilots ever get the urge to take their aircraft higher? Do they say to themselves, 'Just to see what she can do?' To climb towards the very edge of space?' It's a stupid thought. But he's just done it!Thirty four thousand feet the little screen on the back of the seat in front tells me. perhaps he's read my thoughts.Echoes of 'the Intention Experiment'?
The whole of eastern Europe must have had a grey,snowy day. And, 'as the sun sinks slowly in the west' we head towards Minsk and then Moscow.it's -57°C outside at this height the little screen tells me and it can't be my warmer on the ground I imagine!
I can't sleep My watch tells me it's 6 pm Paris time. I haven't reset it to Hong Kong time, an action I shall regret deeply later. We are now passing over Russia and heading towards Astrakhan, a name I dimly recollect from my childhood. My mother once owned a coat which possessed a collar of the same name and of which she was intensely proud. Funny how these little thoughts come back in moments like these.
I stretch my legs after scrambling over the two young French lovers in the seats next to me, asleep, entwined in each other's arms since we left Paris, and make my way aft to the toilets. In the queue I meet a middle aged Frenchman, who introduces himself as Jacques, an ex-pat who lives in Cebu in the Philippines and runs an import/export business, has a Philippino wife, two young children and enjoys 'la peche sousmarine' in his spare time. He is into 'tutoying' immediately. The French do not normally lapse into using the familiar 'tu' form of address unless they know you well or are a workmate or team mate. Perhaps he recognises me as a kindred spirit or a man of the world like him and is paying me this compliment of mateiness.
Whilst we are waiting for the toilet to become available he regales me with the tale of a giant grouper he speared last year, 'un vrai gros', real beauty, a fish he had been trying to get for years he tells me without success and then apparently, one day not so long ago he finally succeeded. 'Et tu sais,' he says 'maintenant à chaque fois que j'y plonge ce poisson me manque énormément. Il était comme un ami à moi.C'est bizarre!' I enter the loo slightly puzzled.
We are now over Bukhara and heading towards places whose names seem to be from another planet, Almaty,Karagandar, and Tashkent before entering deepest Asia and the Sino-Tibetan plateau. The skies are clearing and the sun is rising. But it's only 7pm Paris time and I feel as if another day is beginning and I haven't slept a wink, something I shall regret later when we land in Hong Kong and I have another full day to get through.
It's early January and several months since my simple life in south western France changed forever.I'm beginning a journey that will take me three months and to places as far apart as Hong Kong, the Philippines,South Wales, Paris and Andalucia.
For now, the western edges of Europe are enjoying are enjoying mild, unseasonal weather.Claude, my neighbour in our little French village, mails me, 'C'est déja le printemps,on est content'. The skies for those who live beneath the giant plane must be constantly grey with the threat of more snow, 'encore la grisaille' as the French say when at home the short grey winter days deprive us of the sunshine and the incredible luminosity that normally characterises our part of the world for the major part of the year.
The clouds below us resemble a strange land, a magical land of snow covered hills, valleys and plains which stretches away in the distance. No cloud breaks now, only that strange cloud land as we leave Prague unseen somewhere below us and head towards Warsaw.
Steady at 31,000 feet.I wonder, do airline pilots ever get the urge to take their aircraft higher? Do they say to themselves, 'Just to see what she can do?' To climb towards the very edge of space?' It's a stupid thought. But he's just done it!Thirty four thousand feet the little screen on the back of the seat in front tells me. perhaps he's read my thoughts.Echoes of 'the Intention Experiment'?
The whole of eastern Europe must have had a grey,snowy day. And, 'as the sun sinks slowly in the west' we head towards Minsk and then Moscow.it's -57°C outside at this height the little screen tells me and it can't be my warmer on the ground I imagine!
I can't sleep My watch tells me it's 6 pm Paris time. I haven't reset it to Hong Kong time, an action I shall regret deeply later. We are now passing over Russia and heading towards Astrakhan, a name I dimly recollect from my childhood. My mother once owned a coat which possessed a collar of the same name and of which she was intensely proud. Funny how these little thoughts come back in moments like these.
I stretch my legs after scrambling over the two young French lovers in the seats next to me, asleep, entwined in each other's arms since we left Paris, and make my way aft to the toilets. In the queue I meet a middle aged Frenchman, who introduces himself as Jacques, an ex-pat who lives in Cebu in the Philippines and runs an import/export business, has a Philippino wife, two young children and enjoys 'la peche sousmarine' in his spare time. He is into 'tutoying' immediately. The French do not normally lapse into using the familiar 'tu' form of address unless they know you well or are a workmate or team mate. Perhaps he recognises me as a kindred spirit or a man of the world like him and is paying me this compliment of mateiness.
Whilst we are waiting for the toilet to become available he regales me with the tale of a giant grouper he speared last year, 'un vrai gros', real beauty, a fish he had been trying to get for years he tells me without success and then apparently, one day not so long ago he finally succeeded. 'Et tu sais,' he says 'maintenant à chaque fois que j'y plonge ce poisson me manque énormément. Il était comme un ami à moi.C'est bizarre!' I enter the loo slightly puzzled.
We are now over Bukhara and heading towards places whose names seem to be from another planet, Almaty,Karagandar, and Tashkent before entering deepest Asia and the Sino-Tibetan plateau. The skies are clearing and the sun is rising. But it's only 7pm Paris time and I feel as if another day is beginning and I haven't slept a wink, something I shall regret later when we land in Hong Kong and I have another full day to get through.
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