Return to Dust 7 years on - Part 5 Hannover to home

Return to Dust – 7 years on

“The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull  - Iceland caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over an initial period of six days in April 2010.”  

© Wikipedia

The other day I found my diary and drawings . . . at the time I was 5,969 miles away in HK trying to get home with BBC colleagues Laura, Tom and Chris.

At last the final flight:  Home 

PART FIVE Wednesday 21 April 

It feels odd to wake up again in a bed, on a different continent. 

After breakfast and the bonds of email we headed over to the airport to discover we have all been confirmed on a flight to London this evening. 

Euphoria and incredulity felt in the same moment. 

Then the alternative planning in case the flight is cancelled. So we are closer but still very far away.

Hannover Airport Wurst Central

Hannover Waiting for our call

Afternoon: We are aboard BD 808 to Heathrow Terminal 1.

Homeward bound for sure, four of the one hundred and fifty British nationals (according to Tom who saw it on the BBC World News) stranded in Europe. That’s enough people to fill seven hundred and fifty Airbus 330s. In the warm spring sun we walk across the tarmac to board the small, shiny and perfectly formed 47-seater Embraer ERJ-145. Relieved.

Our lives are easily fractured. 

Certainty is unwittingly violated by the natural order of things and the fallout from Iceland’s volcanoes will continue.

FOOT NOTE

I end this post on my blog with Thom Gunn's poem 

ON THE MOVE

‘Man, you gotta go.'

At worst, one is in motion; and at best,

Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,

One is always nearer by not keeping still.