Waking up to hear the ‘unprecedented’ news about Heathrow Airport, I felt a nanosecond of luxurious relaxation (albeit I’m not exactly over the moon about being in a hospital bed without the use of my legs). Of course I’d rather be scampering about an airport superstore being sprayed with scent by sexy shop-girls rather than stuck here waiting to be hoisted into the air over a commode like some smelly piñata. But there’s never any harm in looking on the bright side and I’m very glad not to have been flown all the way back to Delhi when I was on the verge of landing in TW6, as was one young woman on the Today programme last week.
You wouldn’t think that one fire at a nearby substation could affect the lives of thousands of people, but that’s what happened this past weekend at Europe’s busiest airport, with at least 1,300 flights cancelled. This is the first time Heathrow has closed down completely since 2010 when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in Iceland sent a massive ash plume far into the atmosphere, grounding thousands of flights across Europe and beyond. I remember I was stuck in Eilat, the Vegas of Israel, for a fortnight, so that wasn’t so bad.
But it’s not just big disasters that make me pleased to be a homebody these days (though I’m now in a wheelchair, I hung up my travelling shoes more than five years ago, when I was rich and mobile). I’d just had a lovely free trip to Berlin, too, but since then, I’ve turned down jaunts to places like the Italian lakes which sound nothing if not pleasant. I’d compare holiday-fatigue to cocaine use, which I also indulged in enthusiastically for 30 years.
I’m not alone. The expression ‘I needed a holiday to get over the holiday,’ is frequently heard; a survey by National Express recently claimed that 40 per cent of people say that the week leading up to their departure is the most stressful time of the entire year, with 66 per cent finding themselves ‘overwhelmed’ and 31 per cent saying they’re too busy to get excited. That was never my problem, coming to foreign travel as late as I did, at the ripe old age of 35. I had a very unusual relationship with holidays; I never went abroad till 1995, when I jetted off to the Maldives for a fortnight (me and my new squeeze, paid for by a newspaper – those were the days) after a childhood of going no further than the Isle of Wight.
I wasn’t that keen on the Indian Ocean – a bit quiet for me – but I’d definitely got the taste for travel; on meeting my third husband, I became a regular globe-trotter. I have to admit that I swerved holidays during my first and second marriages, as I had inklings that too much time in the presence of ‘Thing 1’ and ‘Thing 2’ might prove wearisome (during the first I pretended to be agoraphobic, spending much time alone writing at night; during the second I pretended to have a fear of flying, spending much time with other people) but having finally found a companion who suited me well, I then commenced to globe-trot like a footloose fiend. It would be a rare year when I didn’t take half a dozen full-on holidays, and that’s not counting long weekends in European capitals; once I took a tanning holiday in Tenerife solely so I wouldn’t rock up pale in Barbados a few weeks later.
I was one happy traveller. And then, in 2019, I’d had enough – just like I’d had enough cocaine in 2015
These three decades ran alongside my cocaine years, all of a piece when disposable income seemed like Monopoly money. I never stressed about travelling; I loved the process of everything from packing (which worries around 70 per cent of poor souls) to tipping (in one Barcelona restaurant I was so drunk that restaurant patrons joined the queue after I’d finished with the staff) to being poured off the return flight nice and numb so that passport control wasn’t too dull. In short, I was one happy traveller. And then, in 2019, I’d had enough – just like I’d had enough cocaine in 2015. Covid happened the next year, yes, but I never even wore a mask; I’m not a fearful person, so that wasn’t the reason. The ever-present threat of Islamist terrorism in the world is real, but I went to Paris on purpose after the Bataclan attack, to show solidarity, so it wasn’t that, either.
I just think that sometimes there’s a time of one’s life when everything is in place: the perfect combo of companionship, sex, physical resilience, money. The years 1995 to 2020 were mine; I always think of the line from the F. Scott Fitzgerald essay Early Success: ‘when the fulfilled future and the wistful past were mingled in a single gorgeous moment – when life was literally a dream.’ This made holidays a lush celebration of life rather than a frantic escape, hence the absence of angst that makes holidays such stressful events for others.
As with other vital departments of my pre-disabled life, I’ve got such gorgeous memories, enough to last me nine lifetimes. So when people who are trying to make me feel better say ‘but it’s not over,’ I reply cheerfully ‘yes, it is!’ And anyway, if I think of the person I know who goes on holiday the most (always alone, tellingly), she’s also the most miserable person I’ve ever met. Holidays are undoubtedly wonderful for happy families and freshly minted couples and friends who still spark joy in each other; I’ll always remember some of the most memorable moments of my life taking place on holidays. But equally, I remember another of them took place being driven around a car park that we couldn’t work out how to exit; happiness is in one’s head, not in a picturesque sunset. For many people, holidays are yet more dreary effort, doomed to bring diminishing returns. So while I’m happy for everyone who finally got away from Heathrow, I can’t help but feel that a few mardy, tardy souls were secretly pleased by the slight stay of execution the disaster occasioned.
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