The world is a very busy place...

Yes, it’s that time again, time to go and see my Dad back in the UK, check up on him, make sure he’s OK. He’s ninety after all.

Does he need checking up on?

Well, not really. He’s fairly self-sufficient to be honest. He still drives, he shops, he cooks. He now employs a gardener and a cleaner (although I do wonder what the cleaner does sometimes), so he doesn’t need to worry about gardening and cleaning. He’s mentally all there. He’s spent the last year or so dealing with the authorities as well as various institutions with regard to my Mum’s Estate. He’s refused any help and seems to be coping admirably.

So, all in all, me going back to see him does nothing but interrupt his routine.

Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, I suppose, and he does seem to appreciate me being there: he collects me from the airport, takes me to the pub for lunch, buys and cooks me food, pays for my flights… I’m still one of his little boys, obviously. He won’t let me lift a finger – oh, except when he has trouble with his laptop or needs various light bulbs changing. This time it’s the purchase and configuration of a new laptop, and two bulbs in the kitchen, apparently, so I’d better get there double quick.

So, where am I going with all this? Well, to be honest, I didn’t start out intending to write about Dad; I wanted to write about what I noticed on my trip back to the UK.

And what did I notice? I noticed that the world is a very busy place.

My flight was at 11:30am, so I caught the 07:53am from Fuseta. The train was packed, so there was absolutely no chance of the guard getting through to charge me the requisite fare, and absolutely no chance of me getting a seat.

From Faro train station, I caught a taxi to the airport, where people were piling out of cars, taxis, vans and buses and streaming into an already heaving terminal.

Once inside I had to queue to get through security, which took maybe twenty-five minutes. I then had to queue to go through Immigration, which was maybe another twenty-minutes.

I then walked through the crowded Duty-Free area and into the even more crowded waiting area – where there wasn’t a free seat to be found. People were ensconced on the floor, leaning up against any spare bit of wall they could find. Queues for the fast-food outlets stretched out into the waiting area. People wandered around like zombies, hoping against hope to find a seat.

I was one of the zombies. At one point, I actually found a spare bit of wall to lean against, but then noticed that someone had spilt their drink there – bummer. No sitting for me then.

It was at this point that I had a flash of inspiration – the toilets! I could go and find an empty cubicle and relax, couldn’t I?

So, I went to the toilet and what did I find? Every cubicle was already taken – another bummer. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one to have had this flash of inspiration.

Eventually, maybe an hour later, I amazingly found a seat, which was just as well since I was wilting big time, and I’d just discovered that the plane had been delayed by ninety minutes. Mmmm…

Finally, we boarded, and I found that the plane was heaving too: a fully-laden flight, complete with screaming kids, loud golfing parties, stressed stewards and stewardesses…

And at the other end, at Gatwick, things weren’t much better. A couple of flights landed together, so the corridors were full as we headed towards passport control. Once there, I saw that the e-Gates were open, but that the queue for the single attendant (who was there to help people who’d failed to navigate the e-Gates) was much longer than the queues for the e-Gates themselves. I soon joined this ever-increasing queue when my e-Gate refused to let me through. Bloody hell.

Once through, I found myself in what I can only call a maelstrom of humanity. People were going in all directions, stopping, reversing, dawdling, blocking walkways… It was chaos.

Outside was no better. Whilst waiting for my Dad at the pickup area (which now costs £6 – what the…?), cowering from the rain under the cover of a nearby car park, I watched cars pull up, block each other in, double park. I watched people pile out of cars, people pile into cars, people head into the airport, people come out of the airport. More chaos.

My Dad eventually arrived, having taken twice as long as normal to get to Gatwick, apparently due to rain, water on the roads and inordinately busy traffic. It was no better going back – two hours of sitting in traffic jams. Bloody hell.

We later found that the reason for the heavy traffic was the fact that the M25 was shut in both directions around Junction 6, with traffic sent south towards Gatwick to circumnavigate the problem, creating a new problem, obviously. Oh well.

Eventually, we made it home.

I grabbed a pork pie from the fridge (yes, my Dad loves to fill the fridge with all the things I used to eat when I was in my teens), sat on the sofa and relaxed, with just one thought on my mind:

Yes, it’s really good to see Dad, and it’s good to come back to the house that I grew up in, but when can I go back to Portugal, please? I really want to return to the sanity of Fuseta, and leave behind the insanity and bedlam of the outside world.

Blimey, I must be getting old.