We passed the environmental audit! Or at least, we were recommended for certification, which is as good as passed, and with only six nonconformites to deal with and a month to deal with them. Boss was pleased and decided we would go out for a drink to celebrate, but not until after he had farted around doing last minute fiddles to the laptop. Then he plied me with wine so that when I got back home to Bob&Oscar’s, they found me amusingly pissed. I had to repack my bags to account for the laptop case and the hundredweight of bandages and stuff for my neck, then slept badly until 4am, when I had to get up.
Bob drove me down to Heathrow because she had to be down south for an interview anyway (and the good news is that it sounds like it went pretty well), and Pigger miaowed the whole way. I was worrying that if he thought an hour and a half in a car was bad, he was never going to cope with an aeroplane, but everyone has recommended that I don’t sedate him, so sedate him I didn’t.
I was at Heathrow at 6.30am for a 9.55 flight, so they wouldn’t let me check in, although someone did take my ticket and reserve my seat, before telling me to come back in an hour to check my bags. I sipped vile hot coffee, my food hygiene past preventing me from wheeling my trolley into the cafe to get something to eat; my £1000 laptop preventing me from leaving the trolley while I got some breakfast. Just coffee, then, and talking to my baggage every now and then to see if he was okay. He seemed to have settled down a lot, stretched out on his cushion in the box, just jumping a little at the announcements. He was probably doing better than me; I felt hungover, tired, nervous and emotional. Always a good travelling frame of mind.
I wheeled him back to the check-in desk, where everyone fussed over him and the woman checking me in used the wrong ticket. I pointed it out to her, and she sent me back to the desk where I had reserved my seat earlier to see if they had kept it. Then she made panicky phone calls to find out what she should do. Then she turned round to the stewardess behind her who kindly pointed out that it was under her seat, at which point I burst into tears. The dozy bat apologised profusely (mainly because she thought she was going to get into trouble), and neglected to charge me for my excess baggage; she didn’t even charge me for Pigger: result!
I was told to hang on to Pigger until 9, as the loading bay was noisy and he would be happier with me, so I got myself another vile coffee and went back to my book. By this time he had decided that adventures were a piece of cake, and was busy watching the world through his plastic bars. I continued to be the madwoman talking to her baggage. By 9.00 I was a complete wreck, and managed to bite my lip and only burst into tears again once the nice man had wheeled Pigger away. He didn’t give me a chance to say goodbye! He just walked up to me, said is this the cat for Budapest? … I’ll take him from here and was gone, leaving me with just my laptop case, which was a darn site less cuddly than the black cat had been, and a lot heavier too.
At least I could finally go through to the Departure lounge and get a bite to eat (Pret a Manger chicken and avocado sandwich), and pick up bits and pieces for the Magyar contingent: Empire magazine for Upsetter, Toblerone for Upcsetter, and wine for Ken. The flight was delayed by about twenty minutes, so I had a little extra shopping time before I had to find my gate.
The queue at the gate took forever and I was starting to feel really ill; maybe it was the sandwich, or the two vile coffees. I was almost desperate to get on the plane in case I passed out or something (I felt that wobbly), and they told me I wasn’t fit to fly. Finally I crept into my windowseat and spent the next three hours worrying about Pigger, especially in the heavy turbulence as we ascended from Heathrow. What on earth must it feel like to be a cat, a particularly nervous one at that, stuffed into a box for six hours by that time, and jolted and shaken and stuck in the hold of a noisy aeroplane in the dark with no-one to talk to. He would never speak to me again, I was sure of it; or worse than that, he wouldn’t survive the flight.
Couldn’t eat my in-flight sandwich (what the hell has happened to aeroplane food? Why is it always sandwiches these days? What happened to the overheated omelette and rubber lasagne that I used to enjoy?). Finished my book, though, and then watched the Danube curve into view like a smile. The point where I managed a smile as well, was that moment where you feel that tiny alteration in the speed of the plane, and you know it’s just about to begin to descend. Then the captain made another announcement, welcoming the first-time visitors to Budapest; welcoming the Hungarians home, and I burst into tears again.
As I walked off the plane, I paused to ask the cabin staff if they knew where I could collect the cat from, and made some joke about him bumping down the conveyor belt, which they took seriously and were at pains to assure me would not happen. By the time I had been processed through passport control, he was already there, waiting by the belt, alive and well. He gave me a get on with it then and quit yer snivelling look, and complained when I lifted him on to the trolley. No-one said anything when I took him through the green channel. No-one asked for his papers or took the slightest bit of notice of him. Ken was there waiting with a rose (yes, more tears), bundled us into a taxi, hurried us home.
Pigger stepped out of his box in his new world, looked around, recognised his furniture, gave Ken a big headbutt, and spent the next hour or so wandering round inspecting everything. He likes this flat, especially the dusty bit behind the heater, and he thinks the rattan bedframe is a scratching post especially for him. His favourite spot is Ken’s chair, and he has of course contemptuously ignored the catbasket I bought for him on the christmas market.