The wrong queue

I'm doing several of my favourite things in the world, all at once. How excellently pleasing.

I'm on my way to Manchester to visit friends (some of whom live only 3 miles from me, but such is life atm). I'm not at work or on call. I'm going to play a LOT of pinball this weekend, and I'm going to rack up a new parkrun. But before all of those things, I'm going to have a(nother) free beer and some (more) free food, because I'm in one of BA's business class lounges at Heathrow terminal 5. I'm going to get in a big metal tube that travels very fast and very high and I love this shit.

Two things nearly stopped this from happening (the lounge, not the flight). At security there were plenty of queues, and I joined one that seemed a sensible mixture of short and close. Seems this was the wrong queue. The actual metal detector takes people, zip fashion, from two queues. Seemingly I had chosen to stand behind all the most awkward people at once. I don't say this lightly, because Christ knows I've been through airport security a bunch of times before, but this really was bad.

6 people set the detector off. Six! Each had to try again, one person twice. Three people in my queue failed to understand half the instructions, so made a meal out of taking laptops etc from their bags, remembering to leave handbags in the trays, struggling to take jackets off, and completely unable to fit their hundreds of 100ml each liquids into a sealed plastic clear bag. Yes,  it has to be sealed. So while every other queue was barely stopping, I was stood for about 10 minutes doing fuck all, waiting for this fail bonanza to pass.

The next challenge was easy. I had thought trying to get into the BA lounge without a BA card, and with no valid card of any description in my possession, might be tricky, but the staff were nice and checked my Cathay number had renewed, as I'd claimed. So here I am, one London Pride down and supping on Woodfords Reserve, my favourite bourbon. Mmmm.

My flight is delayed by half an hour already. This is almost never a shame, though this time I'm a bit annoyed because there's someone waiting for me at the other end and I don't like putting people out, especially late at night (if I was staying in a hotel I wouldn't care at all). Oh! And as if by magic, my lift has just asked if I'd mind getting a cab because him and Martin are getting a thirst on. This is excellent and has made me smile.

Flying is one of my go-to activities when normal life is getting me down. There have been hints of depression recently. I think I should run more, and maybe start doing mindfulness exercises again. But flying, and everything about the experience, is a decent tonic too.