My bedside digital clock said 4.44. I spent two hours lying rehearsing the day's last-minute jobs and evaluating various permutations around repacking. Mary had to take Barrie to Northern General Hospital at 8am, so when Phil and Donna texted at 7.00am, I too relinquished the bed. Then Gav rang: he had all the family gathered round the phone to wish me goodbye. When I told him the flight was 7.00 in the evening he rang off to get on with breakfast. Harriet breezed, "Did you see what Ali posted on Facebok last night? 'My last proper night's sleep for two weeks.'" "Did she tell you about the travel iron?" I followed. Actually, the last hours had been eventful for us all. When the rest of us were away in Birmingham, Steven, our Jesus Centre publicity supremo, had arranged to got to Bridlington for a few days away and to attend a wedding. Only he'd taken rather more of his stuff than he needed, and then texted Mary to say 'things had come up'... Sunday supper was a non-event.
On Sunday night and Monday morning I'd desperately tried to find an online bookseller who could deliver ISBN 0691007373 "Wildlife of East Africa" before I left Sheffield. Hannah had failed in her attempt to check in on line. James had found that Viv had nicked the best of our camera tripods, and I would need to get it to him before baggage check-in. Both Len and I had clean forgotten to agree about picking up the two Multiply video cameras, but James (Jimmie to his friends) had thoughtfully snaffled them. He'd also posted a copy of the Sheffield Jesus Centre video he's just completed on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtgHXLKUSZI
The first email I checked was Steven saying the advance budget money still hadn't arrived. The folks in Lusaka were desperate for it, else we wouldn't be able to keep to the conference arrangements. Andy rang to say he'd been trying to use the Skaino credit card, and had locked out the password. He apologised that I wouldn't be able to use it in an emergency.
Time to get to the station arrived faster than I'd noticed, juggling how to transport the tripod and all. But, at Sheffield station my train had been cancelled. A landslip had required maintenance work, and only one, not three trains per hour were running between there and Chesterfield. And they were being very slow about it. I texted Len to say 'Save me a place in the baggage queue'.
Sitting on the delayed train, I realised I'd left $500 of conference 'contingency' money at home in my briefcase. Somehow, I didn't feel like eating my packed lunch.
Past Leicester, the driver opened the throttle and we seemed to catch up on lost time. I saved a few minutes on the tube and Heathrow Connect train, and surfaced at Terminal 4 just an hour late. The rest of the gang had taken over Cafe Nero. Jake, the driver from Northampton, and Jimmie were tinkling on the concourse piano.
Farayi introduced me to his wife Brenda and two children, plus their adopted daughter who'd be travelling with us to join another member of the family in Ndola. The Kenya Airways check-in was straightforward, not least because the plane was only half full and the usual crush of passengers was absent. We had a last-minute photo shoot while Mary rang to say that her hospital checkup had gone okay, but she has another one on Tuesday.On board, I texted Gav to say we were due to switch off 'all electronic equiment'. But 'We love you, Granddad.' arrived on my answerphone just the same. Len was like a kid with a new toy fiddling with the in-flight entertainment console, and Jimmie was shooting still photos and videos of the terminal building through the window.
After the crew served the meal, Len passed round half his bread roll as our little Agape. I headed towards the back and took over three empty seats together. With three hours time difference they would be serving breakfast at local time equivalent of 4.00am. I saw Jimmie's screen flickering, but sleep was first priority for me.
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