Always and another

Another journey. It's always a journey, a constant one.

My mate's sofa. Pleasure. Then a hotel and then another one. Business. Hotel Costes by DJ Stéphane Pompougnac, Volume no.3 or 5 or 6 or whatever, they all mix in to one, when I travel I always play these on my Ipod. Laptop, mobile. Headphones. We live Wi-Fi but I am always tangled up in wires in my bag.

Pack my bag and fold up everything neatly the night before. Shove it all back in ten minutes before the journey back 'home' - wherever that is. Often it can feel like an airport, there are some I have frequented that give me an uncanny homely feeling. Always the same story. A story that keeps on keeping on. So many different people in so many different airports and so many different journeys and stories to hear and tell.

So take-off and touch-down. Ups and downs. Highs and laughs while you're there and on the way. Downs and sadness, yet smiles going back. Always smiles wherever I go.

Always the same. My journeys haven't changed over the years. While the world keeps changing and people move on, sometimes I feel like I am travelling without moving, shuffling around like Jay Kay in that Jamiroquai video, moving from place to place, but always there. 'Always present, never there' were the late-Denis Thatcher's very own words of himself at Maggie's side. But I keep moving. It's important to move, I can't keep too still. I glide.

I can pause. Like I have just done before starting to write this very line, but only to move the mouse up and down; a conveyor belt of letters, words, punctuation. Checking what I have written.

Check-in, check-out. In between  bustle, chill, people. Nobody.

Another carousel, another kaleidoscope of experience. I always soak it up like a sponge. Everywhere I go, hugs, kisses, handshakes. Hellos and Goodbyes, but never an adieu. Sometimes tears, but always smiles. Always smiles, constantly. One after another.

Once you're there, those nights going to sleep with a smile on your face. For one reason or another, even if only just to know you don't have to get up for anyone the next day. 8 hours solid sleep. One night after another. And it ends with another sleepless night for the early morning flight. It always makes it worse knowing you only have a few hours to sleep. Another window seat - I always take the window seat, to grab another hour or two here and there. Andrew, how can you sleep like that on a plane, even on a short journey? I always do. Coffee is always needed though whether to wake or make it through.

Change is constant, so are my journeys and my travels, they are always there, one after another. Yet I don't change, I feel the same, I am still the child who would keep stepping back on every escalator, never reaching the end, travelling without moving. Until I got told to stop messing around and hurry along. What's the hurry? What about enjoying the journey? I have always messed around - give me an inch and I'll take a mile. Another mile. Air miles.

Another journey. It's always a journey, a constant one...