Episode 1 – Back in a Green and Pleasant Land

I have arrived safely at Hulme Hall, one of the residence halls at the University of Manchester. I’m here for the annual conference of the British Society for the History of Science, although it doesn’t start until Thursday afternoon. I decided to take a couple of days to get over jet lag. I’m glad I did. There’s no way I’d be able to sit through even one afternoon of the conference in my current state. I’ve been awake now for over 36 hours, only excepting a few short naps on the plane. I left Sydney at 5pm on Monday, and it is now 8pm on Tuesday evening. Of course, it’s only 11am here, so I need to stay awake for quite a few hours yet.


I went through my usual departure rush – finished packing just before we left for the airport at 1:45pm (check-in opened at 2pm!) but everything was fine. The lady at check-in was very grateful for my conformity to the baggage weight restrictions. Quite unusual for me, actually, so I was pretty happy too! My parents and my boyfriend, Matt, came to see me off at the airport. We had a cup of coffee, did a little shopping for small gifts to give to people in the UK, and then I said goodbye and disappeared through the sliding doors, looking back and waving until I could see them no more. I passed through security with no incident. I completely forgot to take out my little 1L bag with my bottles (less than 100mL) of liquid for inspection, and no one asked. I sat looking out the window at the planes, doing sudoku puzzles until it was time to board the plane.

Window seat – hurrah! Of course, there’s no perfect place to sit on a plane. I like the window seat because I find it more comfortable to sleep if I can lean against the window.

(Interlude: While writing the above, I was sitting in the bar at Hulme Hall waiting for my room to be ready. I’m the only early arrival for the BSHS conference, and they weren’t quite ready for me. Georgina, the lovely girl from reception, came up to tell me that my room was ready. I got my keys, trundled down to the building, found room G15 – door open, trash not emptied, bed not made, towels on the floor – not ready at all! So I went back up to reception, someone came down with me to check on the situation, and now I’m sitting in a little common room, again waiting for my room to be ready.)

OK, no perfect place to sit on a plane. The window seat is good for sleeping and admiring the view, but not good for getting up to use the toilet. The aisle seat is good for getting up whenever you want to, but you have to deal with trolleys banging your elbows and people climbing over you, and it’s not so comfortable for sleeping. The middle seat is just not good for anything. Fortunately, I don’t need to get up all that often. My legs do get cramped, but I can wiggle them around enough to (I hope) ward off the threat of deep vein thrombosis. I try to get up to go to the toilet when one of the other people in my row gets up. If it’s the person on the aisle, I can climb over the person in the middle. If it’s the person in the middle, they have to get the person on the aisle to move anyway.

(Finally in my room now!)


On the flight to London, the person in the aisle seat of my row was particularly cranky. He didn’t seem too happy when he had to stand up to let me get to my seat in the first place, and he was distinctly unimpressed when the lady sitting in between us and I decided to go to the bathroom. True, he was about to go to sleep, but I thought it would be better to disturb him while he was getting ready to go to sleep rather than wake him once he had already dozed off. But there’s no pleasing some people.

On the leg from Sydney to Bangkok, my entertainment-on-demand system wasn’t working, so I was just getting scheduled movies. I watched The Holiday – I missed the beginning, but it didn’t matter because I’d already seen it. I also watched Zodiac, which is not the best in-flight movie. The sound through the headphones is not great, so it was difficult to work out what they were saying at times and it was a bit hard to follow. Also, I was getting exhausted, and it’s a really long movie – 2 ½ hours, I think.

From Bangkok to London I had my entertainment-on-demand. Hurrah! I watched an episode of House, and a movie which I have already forgotten… At least I think I watched a movie. Maybe I didn’t. I was rather sleepy by that point. But it was an eleven hour flight – surely I watched more than just House! Hmm. Thinking… Ah, that’s right. Music and Lyrics. Obviously not very memorable. It was kind of cute, but not great. I also watched an episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything – the one with the Trojan horse. Highly amusing.

We arrived in London slightly early, but I still only just made it to my flight to Manchester on time. I had to get from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1 – fortunately they provided a free shuttle bus. But when I got to Terminal 1 and was about to go through security again, I had a problem. Apparently what I consider a handbag is too big for UK domestic flights. So, I had to go out through passport control and check in my carry-on bag. Unfortunately, I only had 30 minutes until I was due to board my flight, and the queue for non-British and European Union passport holders was immense. There was no way I would get through in time. There were a few other people around in the same position. One girl, whose flight was leaving 15 minutes after mine, was even more stressed than I was. She asked at the desk for British passport holders if they would let her through, and was told “it’s not my problem you’ve got two bags.” I must be much sweeter – when I went up there and explained my situation, the lady said “well, since you asked so nicely” and let me through. So then I had to find the check-in counter, check in my bag, go back through security and finally made it to my plane with several minutes to spare before boarding began. Unfortunately, my other suitcase didn’t make the connecting flight with me. Apparently it will be delivered this afternoon.

It’s interesting how security standards vary at different airports. My mum was helping me pack (don’t know what I’d do without her!) and we carefully prepared my little bag of little bottles of liquid, and I had those in my handbag, ready to whip out for inspection if required. When the plane landed in Bangkok, we all got chased off the plane, but fortunately were allowed to leave our carry-on luggage behind. After I turned my phone on in the airport, I received a message from my mum. She’d woken up at 1:30am and suddenly realised that despite our careful attention to regulations on liquids, we’d still packed all my toiletries in my carry-on bag. What were we thinking?! Fortunately, I had left it on the plane, so I didn’t have to get it through security at Bangkok. And since I had to check it in at Heathrow, I didn’t have any problems there either. But the security people at Sydney Airport let me through with not only several bottles of liquids, gels and pastes (more than 1L in total), but also a mini Swiss Army Knife and a manicure set containing scissors, nail file and nail clippers. Hmm.

Aside from that, the flight to Manchester was quite uneventful. A nice sausage, scrambled egg and tomato chutney roll and (finally!) a decent cup of tea. But once we touched down in Manchester, I was so glad that I didn’t have to be back on a plane for almost 6 weeks! The only problem is that my suitcase has not yet arrived in Manchester, but hopefully it will be delivered sometime this afternoon. It’s now 12:08pm, and I guess I should be out seeing the sights of Manchester. It’s so tempting to have a nap, but that probably won’t help me get over jetlag. Perhaps I’ll do a little work on my conference paper (still have to prepare the PowerPoint presentation!), go for a little wander and with a little luck, my suitcase will be here in time for me to have a shower before finding somewhere to have dinner. Stay tuned for the next episode!

(By now you will have realised the drawback of having a laptop while travelling – super long blog posts!!)