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he temporal limbo of international travel, the great leveler that pays little heed to who you may propose to be and ensures that by the time you’re squeezed out the other end, reborn as the doors part through customs to heave you onto the arrivals floor, you will look and feel exactly as the poor fellow next to me. When he boarded he was all smart; well-ironed suit with adjusted tie, shined shoes and pressed trousers. Now he is mess, clutching his tagged and battered briefcase beneath the blinding white lights of Heathrow arrivals, a rabbit in the headlights and a long way from home. By Tim Conibear.

He no longer resembles the businessman but just another traveler lost in the hinterland of another faceless airport lounge. Suit in tatters, tie long gone and orange airline socks peering guiltily over his now matt black shoes as he desperately looks around for someone to speed him away from this place to calm and comfort.

Next to his ramshackle chique I must cut a forlorn figure. Some 25 hours earlier, in grim anticipation of a day’s flying, I’d done my best to exhaust myself by paddling the ‘berg for as long as I could muster, hot footing it to the airport still crusted in salt for a last minute check in and, in theory, a lot of sleep. Now, 25 hours later, after several take offs, several landings, several in flight movies and several mistimed quasi palatable meals, I’m stood next to him, equally as disorientated, equally as confused and on the edge of full emotional meltdown, desperate for the sign of anything familiar and desperate get home.

25 hours of travel. At some point I think we touched down in Bahrain, or somewhere in the desert. It was still dark, but it was stifling hot regardless. The transit hall was the same as any transit hall; brightly lit, polished tile floor, duty free shops, ruthlessly bland décor and Starbucks everywhere. Somewhere in between the escalators, the queues, the x-ray machines and passport checks was a Ferrari spinning on a chrome plinth with a shoeless and humbly dressed Indian man fast asleep at its foot, the rest is a daze. At least I think we were in Bahrain. 

Heathrow to Cornwall, 5 hours to the blur of glorious green that is England in summer. M4, M5, A30, overpriced fuel, expensive cheap coffee, stale cheese sandwiches, but home none the less with the miles sweeping by to the wonderfully mundane and offbeat headlines of local radio news, “somewhere someone has taught pigeons to recognize good art” pronounced the reporter before handing back to her anchor. This is the land of Monty Python.

Then the end of the road and at last the deep blue Atlantic, the familiar half crescent of Constantine Bay stretching from the reef on the one side to the point on the other, a small summer swell with a softening evening wind, soon to be a classic English summer glass off to be surfed until sunset somewhere around 10:30pm. Familiar faces, breathing in the familiar sweet summer smells of home and exhaling slowly I begin to feel…normal again. It may be small, it may be gutless, the 9,6 under my arm may be a huge triple stringered log instead of a thin tapered Cape Winter gun, but who cares, it’s home. And today of all days, I need it.