It’s Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas

Between Sydney and Coolangatta on flight VA523

I’m flying to Sydney, I said to the lady at the check-in desk. You’re in Sydney, she said. And smiled.

It had been a long day and exactly 24 hours since I had bumped into Jay at the ferry port in Siquijor. Jay is a young traveller who had made a last minute decision to head home to England for Christmas to surprise her Mum. I hugged her and told her she was about to make a memory that would last forever. I also told her the story of my far-away son coming home to surprise me on my 50th birthday. By the end of our conversation, we were both glassy-eyed and goose-bumped and there was a sweet feeling of camaraderie as we set off on our separate journeys towards family.

The ferry ride to Dumaguete was uneventful apart from the rough seas, wind, and rain. I’ve come to expect bad weather whenever I’m leaving a place, so despite the rolling and lurching, it felt like everything was exactly as it should be. But I was still sad to leave. So I sent a message to Marifi and thanked her for holding on to me in Puerto Princesa and for showing me the way into the Philippines. How different things could have been. Marifi is someone I know I’ll see again.

I was early checking in for my flight to Manila but that turned out to be a good thing too. Sibulan is a tiny airport and the computers had crashed so boarding cards were being written by hand. But it was okay. I had already stopped for my second coffee of the day and there was lots of friendly chit-chat in the queues and in the departure lounge. That short flight was a doddle and a six hour lay-over in Ninoy Aquino Airport meant I had ample time to find some good food, have a long-overdue and heart-warming phone call with a dear one in America, and buy a new pair of flip-flops. Turns out airports make for good shoe shopping. And although six hours might sound like a ridiculously long amount of time to be hanging around, I actually managed to fill it perfectly.

Self-transfers between flights means going through immigration, collecting your bags and starting all over again. But as demonstrated in Manila, I don’t think time functions in airports like it does in the outside world. Whole hours get lost and minutes miraculously evaporate. So if you have less than two hours, a hold up at any juncture can really throw things out. And cutting it fine is still not okay with me. Which meant that the sleepless over-night flight from Manila, its delayed departure and subsequent late arrival, and the unaccounted for distance between international and domestic terminals at Kingsford Smith Airport, had my head on backwards. I kept telling myself it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I missed my flight, but I didn’t believe me.

But by some kind of miracle, I made it to Gate 36 with ten precious airport minutes to spare. And then was annoyed with myself that I’d gone through the ePassport channel to save time and missed out on an Australian passport stamp. I’d also forfeited a bathroom pit-stop and hadn’t brushed my teeth. But I was happy. I was only an hour away from my dear friends, Mr & Mrs G, who would be waiting at Coolangatta Airport on the Gold Coast ready to whisk me away to Folk Tree Farm in Northern Rivers, New South Wales.

And that’s what happened. And it’s felt like coming home. So much so that, for the first time in three months, I woke up on my first morning not knowing where I was. I’ve decided it was because I was truly relaxed. Being truly relaxed might also account for the horrible head-cold and sore throat that I can’t seem to shake. Air-conditioned aircraft always have me feeling a little congested and this one has kicked in hard. But my far-away son arrived the following evening so, despite the head-fug, the cockles of my heart are as warm as they’ve ever been.

So it’s beginning to feel a little like Christmas. Mr & Mrs G are originally Londoners and their jungle home is decorated with fairy lights, bows of spruce and berries, and a beautiful tree. The news has been reporting the bush fires and the extreme heat here in New South Wales and I’ve had lots of messages from concerned loved ones. But whilst there has been devastation in areas not too far away from where we are, the residents here have been lucky. And life, and Christmas preparation, goes on as normal. It’s hot, but not unbearably so, and happily, fire-dampening rain is forecast within the next few days. When and if it comes, I’m going to make sure everyone knows I’m a Pommie and tell them I brought it from home.

Between now and Christmas Day, Mr & Mrs G are expecting the house to fill up. They have lots of friends coming to spend the festive season with them and some of those friends are people from what are now known as the ‘old days’ in London. It’s going to be something of a reunion and I’m excited for things like Christmas Eve breakfast at New Brighton Farmers Market and a Boxing Day cricket match and picnic at the beach. If this is Christmas in Australia, I think I like it.