They say travel broadens the mind, but it also narrows the wallet.

After nearly three months overseas, my wallet resembled a slice of desiccated pastrami. Before I left on my trip, my wife (who had preceded me by a month) issued strict instructions for me to purchase a pair of anti-embolism stockings to prevent deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, while flying. These are designed to stop the blood from pooling in your feet. I always thought that was the heart's job, but what do I know?

As usual, she was right. They do stop the blood pooling in your feet. Possibly because they're so tight, they don't allow any blood flow below the knee! Alas, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the blood had to pool somewhere, which resulted in my knees swelling to the size of the giant lard dumplings my grandmother used to make on Saint Swithin's Day.

It took me over twenty minutes to squeeze into them, and I have the svelte physique of a Scandinavian teenager. It was like trying to squash the winning marrow from the Giant Vegetable Growing Competition, 2024, into an extra small condom. It certainly didn't help at the security-check when I staggered towards them with the gait of Frankenstein’s monster suffering a bad case of piles. No wonder they eyed me suspiciously. I'm sure I heard one of them say,

‘Check his knees for Semtex. Either that or he could be trying to smuggle two pounds of bread dough out of the country.’

Luckily, I managed to make it through all the wizardry of scanners, biometric eye thingys, metal detectors and surly looking paramilitary types who were hoping for some action.

 Oh, the joys of overseas travel!

It didn't bode well when our long-haul flight was delayed for thirty minutes on the runway. Just what you want when the flight is already twenty-three hours long.

The seating was… how can I put it, woeful… yes, that’s the word. I suspect some bigwig back at HQ, who is on a profit-sharing scheme, decided to shorten the legroom by eight inches, therefore allowing the airline to cram in another fifteen rows of seats and boost their profits, and shorten his retirement date. Either that, or they employed a bunch of eight-year-olds to do the seating calculations.

The flight was packed, the food was normal for air travel - i.e. inedible, and there was a clandestine farter adrift, and at large, who assaulted the shared airspace with impunity.

At our brief re-fuel stop, somewhere in the Middle East, we were ushered from the plane and into transit via a five-mile hike, which resulted in all passengers returning to no less than fifty feet from where we disembarked the plane. We then went through another security-check!

Now, call me stupid, and some of you will, but how had I become a security threat sitting on a plane for twelve hours, with my knees sticking into my eyeballs, whilst attempting to eat slops, and breathing in noxious bodily emissions?

I hadn’t left the plane or been anywhere, apart from the toilet, to stretch my bulbous knees. And I hadn’t developed supernatural powers during the intervening hours. But for reasons never explained, they obviously thought I may have manufactured a dirty bomb from a dry bread roll, a spaghetti bolognaise, and a slice of cheesecake which resembled, and tasted like, day-old cat-sick.

There was only one saving grace during the flight. It turned out the phantom farter was sitting in our row of three. My sister, who I was travelling with, was the meat in the sandwich. I had an aisle seat and so did the farter, meaning she took the full brunt of the crossfire.

It’s funny how little things can brighten your day. Thanks, sis. You took one (or many) for the team.

Eventually we arrived at our destination, after what I can only assume was a simulated crash landing on the runway to give the fourteen-year-old pilot a sense of what the real thing would be like.

I’ve been through many bad landings before, and you can always tell when you are in the midst of one, despite the obvious bumps, bangs, and violent slewing of the aircraft. The cabin goes completely silent apart from a few drunks who loudly ask, ‘Are we here already?’

The rest of the passengers have their fingernails embedded into the arm rest, as they go through a mental checklist: did I return my library books, turn the gas off, and lock the front door?

And once off the torturous flight, I was faced with Border Security, and more passport control. 

Thankfully, on landing, or careering down violently, at Manchester Airport, I can’t remember a thing about it after disembarking.

I was bleary-eyed, fatigued, haggard, and hadn’t done anything. I was in desperate need of a triple whisky and a smoke. All I remember is it was very cold and rainy, but then again… it was Manchester.

For all I know, I may have had a cavity search and a vasectomy, and I really couldn’t have cared less.

And that, folks, was the start of my odyssey.

My travel diary continues next time.