Island of a Thousand Palms. (Part l)

Well my little foreign cultural exchange experiment went swimmingly.

Our flight took off on time, we only had to wait an hour after the stated time for the check in desk to open, and of course as always I had to go through the security scanning machine several times. removing ever more items of clothing until at last sick of the constant beeping, and with possibly the worry that the whole terminal might get rather embarrassed should they continue I was waved through with a dogged resilience on the part of the security bods. I have never discovered the reason for my wonderful ability to comfound the machines, but it never fails. Believe me when I say that I am on intimate terms with several security officers at a number of airports.

His Lordship and I were not sat together on the aircraft unfortunately, but he managed to get the two old biddies, who wanted to tell him all about their lovely cat and their great-grandchildren... they had a lot of them and ample time to kill during the three hour flight, they had photos too :) He emerged at the other end with a rather glazed expression and face ache from all the attentive smiling and nodding.

I on the other hand managed to secure the only two other 'normal' looking people on the plane. A young couple on only their second post wedding holiday, ahh! Not flippin ahh at all. They may have looked about 25 years old, but they were as old as Methuselah, good grief, I felt positively pubescent next to them. As we settled into the flight, I immersed myself in my first book, one of the many I devoured over the course of the week, then he committed the first cardinal sin, he wanted to 'chat', but I had an open book in my hands. Hint, hint!! Noo, undeterred he ploughed on.

"Ooh, look we're reading the same book." He cooed.

"Mm." I nodded and smiled.

"What page are you on?"

"Eight." I replied.

"Huh, not a very fast reader then." he pointed out smugly.

"No, unfortunately I seem to be having a little trouble concentrating. I don't know why." I smiled my most sweet sycophantic smile.

He grinned and rifled through the pages of his book to, page seventeen. I resumed my labour and took several deep breaths... a couple of minutes of sheer bliss, then!

"Heck, fancy getting the job of your dreams one minute and then being brutally murdered the next, that's a shame, I really liked her." he suddenly blurted.

Alrighty, he had just commited the second cardinal sin, I'm on page eight, he's on page seventeen, the only 'her' in the book is in rude health at the moment, making plans for her future. HINT, FLAMING HINT. And thus our journey together continued. His final comment to me as we dissembarked, "I've really enjoyed talking to you it's so good when you meet a person with like mind and literary interest." I'm sorry I felt no guilt or shame for the monosyllabic content of my part in our conversation, or the constant images flashing through my tortured mind of limbs being torn asunder and general mayhem and carnage occurring in row 13, seats b and c.

And so we had arrived at our destination, the heat of late afternoon hazed over the tarmac of the runway and an incredible deep azure blue sky beckoned as we stepped from the plane.