Returning to UK - getting there in one piece

Sitting there...inside the plane waiting for the flight to take off was one of the hardest moments of my life. Doubt started creeping in...what am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Leaving the children behind...13 hours of sitting in this confined space ahead...I felt my breathing getting slower...and slower...and my pO2 level was reducing....and I thought to myself the next stage, I would start hyperventilating and the gas-exchange in my blood will deteriorate and I was near a panic attack stage. I tried to calm myself down. I thought about breathing in a plastic bag but that would only alarm the other passengers. The sight of a hijabi behaving strangely is not good in a plane full of white people, with all the scaremongering of plane-hijacking and suicide bombing...I would definitely cause a scene.

So, I tried breathing slowly and deeply. I felt slight light headed and I thought if I was to faint now, I wonder if there's another doctor in this plane that can do something. The pilot gave an announcement that they were having problems doing the head count. I wonder why they needed to do a headcount but anyway, it meant there was a delay and I was struggling to remain calm.

Finally, the captain announced that we were ready for take off. As soon as the plane started moving, all my fears and doubts disappeared. The flight journey was usual and I tried to stay awake as much as I could watching movies on e-player but I kept falling asleep half way through the movie. Plane journeys are never comfortable especially for a 13-hour flight but it was bearable. I tried to control my motion sickness by having some anti-emetics. It seemed to do the trick. After my fourth movie and intermittent cat naps...we were finally there. The plane landed with a bump and soon, we were off the plane onto the airport. The temperature outside was 3 C. It was freezing!!! I hadn't eaten much on the plane but I wasn't feeling hungry.

I got into the wrong queue at the passport counter cause these was no signs to say 'foreign' passport or UK passport only. The immigration officer says "you're in the wrong queue". The trick to embarrassing situations is not to apologise and just walk away and pretend nothing ever happened and that it was not your fault or you could make a quick witty remark. The most important thing is...try not to attract attention and if you have to, then do it in a way that you're blaming others and not yourself. Anyway, went pass the immigration counter still feeling a bit whoozey from the flight. Got to the car rental counter and was given the car keys. I was given directions to pick up the car from the rental car park and there I was at 11 pm, walking in freezing temperature with my luggage along a darkly lit coridoor towards a deserted car park. There was still someone at the car rental office. I told her, "I'm here to pick up the car" and she said "sure, go ahead"...and I thought, right! just pick up the car and go. I found the car...it was a cute little silver Polo. I loaded my suitcase in the car and sat in the driver's seat. I didn't even know how to turn the bloody thing on...the word 'clutch' was flashing before my eyes so, I pressed on the clutch, turned the keys and voila! it started. I started flicking all of the switches searching for headlights, wipers, heaters. It took me 15 minutes to work everything out. Then, I was off on the M11 towards London. I thought to myself, independence and self-reliance is the key to surviving in the UK.