Stretching bits of me into every available space, too nervous to allow myself to sleep in case my snoring caused a fracas, I settled down for the seven-hour flight. With no one to talk to and aided and abetted by a couple of over-sized gin and tonics unaware of the effects of altitude, I withdrew into the rumbling dimness of the cabin and my thoughts.
Though we hadn’t started out terribly well, I still harboured the notion of experiencing a view the Statue of Liberty as we swooped majestically toward the airport and alighting in a frenzy of strangely foreign excitement. After all isn’t JFK one of those enigmatic places where America greets you with an expanse of largess and ‘have a nice day’?
Helped by the fact that had I been on terra firma I would have been on my back slurring inanities at total strangers, what I did experience was a stomach lurching descent and a disconcerting view of ice melting on the wing. Even when we had landed my head seemed to float three inches above my shoulders, which made getting my boots back on inordinately difficult and the wait for H an unsettling mixture of uncontrolled euphoric paranoia.