Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I've just come back from an amazing trip to Morocco (read all about it next week) and as much as I had an incredible experience, it really didn't take me long to remember why it is I've been on the island without leaving for the last three years. Travelling!
My flight out was at stupid o'clock in the morning but that was OK as my die-hard friends kept me company until it was time to make my way to the airport. Once there I was lulled into a false sense of security.
I practically flew through check-in with the nice man behind the counter checking me in all the way through and informing me that he'd given me a seat with lots of leg room for the Dubai-Morocco leg of the trip.
So off I set thinking to myself that this whole travel lark wasn't nearly as bad as I remember. I got off in Dubai and although I had to rush to catch my connecting flight and meet up with the rest of the group, I still had time to have a quick look around the Duty Free area.
After a 20-minute walk to my next departure gate I finally boarded the flight and found my seat with lots of leg room and rummaged through my bag for my book, but then realised I'd left it on the last plane!
It was irritating but not the end of the world and as the trolley dollies (sorry, I mean flight attendants) where coming round with newspapers, I still had plenty to read and the selection of films on the plane were ones I'd been wanting to watch so things were looking up ... or not so much.
Just as I was getting nice and settled in my seat and chatting to one of the other girls on the trip I quickly learned the pitfall of getting extra legroom on the plane. A mother and her son settled themselves down across the aisle and promptly started playing with a musical book, which played a different high-pitched electronic nursery rhyme with every new page turned.
Still, not too much of a problem, I thought, looking over at the book and noting that it only had about six pages to it, not yet realising that they were in fact going to go through the book many times before eventually getting bored, at which point the little boy decided he wanted to spend the rest of the flight running up and down the aisles picking up the belongings of other passengers and handing them over to complete strangers, while his mother watched on smiling indulgently.
Never mind, I thought, plugging in the headset and getting ready to watch the film only to have it drowned out but two screaming children on the opposite aisle, who's parents were equally unconcerned by the noise and disruption they were causing.
Add to this a flicking TV screen, food that was half frozen/ half burned to a crisp, served by some of the most unhappy air crew I've ever seen and all in all this was a pretty hideous flight.
It never ceases to amaze me how inconsiderate parents of little children can be on a flight. As a mother I totally understand that children can be unpredictable and that sometimes they start crying and there's nothing you can do to calm them. But this wasn't the case here. The children were allowed to run riot and irritate the entire cabin while their parents did nothing to stop them.
Thankfully peace rained through the holiday and I had a wonderful time but it's little wonder that I was praying very hard that the volcano cloud that had grounded so many planes would gather speed and reached the north of Africa, leaving me stranded for a few more days and putting off the inevitable nightmare of my trip back. But, of course, I was to have no such luck, my flight took off with only a couple of hours delay and the horror that is travelling unravelled once again ... But that's a story for another day.
