Exit

I made final preparations and by mid-morning I was on my way to Heathrow with a talkative taxi driver who had done a motorbike tour in India shortly before Covid chaos kicked off. It was good to hear that in his case, business had flourished in lockdown as taxis were often used to take medical supplies from A to B. It was disappointing to realise taxi drivers hadn’t ever been recognised as frontline workers despite their role in taking old dears weekly to the supermarket, or responding to some jobs and finding it was to transport a Covid postal test kit from someone with a suspected case to the sorting office.

At Heathrow, I filled in consent forms, had my visa scrutinised, presented my test results and checked in baggage. All went relatively smoothly and I had a coffee and a raspberry and white chocolate gooey thing to celebrate. It made a delightful change that during this airport experience I made zero attempt to do any work. Typical past airport visits entailed leaping from corner to corner, crunching on the floor near the toilets using a plug labelled ‘not for public use’, because Sue from Finance needed a budget sheet that couldn’t wait until after landing. We’ve all been there, but no more thank you very much.

I procrastinated at the gate, almost not able to believe the 17 months of limbo in the UK were coming to an end. I shovelled down some paprika crisps which I then regretted when my mouth was barriered by a mask for the next 20 hours. I would recommend avoiding strong-smelling foods at such moments.

Qatar Airways doled out ‘protective kits’, which were more useful than those disposable toothbrushes we used to get. Out of practice with flying, I didn’t perform any major howlers although I forgot to put my phone on airplane mode, and thought I had an issue with volume when I’d simply forgotten to pop my ears.

35 degrees in Doha. Hello heat. I wondered whether the massive Doha airport bear would have survived the pandemic, and the answer is a resounding yes.