Hello Jetlag, my old friend.

I have just flown New Zealand/ UK return trip for a couple of weeks, it’s not the first time but like giving birth one forgets the true horror of jetlag.  I once went back for a week,  two days from the end of the trip we decided we would rent our house out so we packed up the contents of our three bedroom home and deposited it in my mum’s loft.  Right now I want to say How? How on earth did we manage that?

I always think I’m going to be fine then the day after we land in the UK I start thinking ‘Why do I feel so nauseated?’ and I spend the first couple of days wishing it was bedtime, I give in around 8pm which of course doesn’t help because insomnia is my usual bedfellow.  I fall into a deep oblivion and wake 2 hours later feeling shattered but my brain is fairly insistent the day needs to begin.

These trips are planned with military precision as there is so much to compress into such a short time.  People need catching up with, we travel through large areas of the UK that wouldn’t usually be attempted in a couple of weeks and there is so much shopping to be done. During the year I make a list of everything that is  prohibitively expensive or I have tried to buy in NZ and can't, our suitcases return stuffed with instant gravy, percy pigs and bras that actually fit along with a vast quantity of Jelly Spogs (those bobbly sweets in liquorice allsorts).  Every time in NZ customs, regardless of what we have remembered to declare, there is always something that looks like contraband on the x-ray and I have forgotten to mention. We are always searched.  This time it was 4 squeezy pots of golden syrup that looked as if they could be honey.  It wasn’t a problem as I had declared ‘food’ but obviously had denied any honey so once again I was promising the biosecurity agent that my husbands boxers which were packed around said packets were clean, honestly!  Every time we return the security officer says ‘you should make a list’ and every time I say ‘good idea’ but jetlag ensures I never remember to.

This trip I took melatonin and I can honestly say that I am completely underwhelmed with the result, not even sure if it made any difference at all. I am waiting for the day that I can return home (at whichever end, I am still so settled that both continents are ‘home’) and step into some sort of suspended animation pod for 8 hours, waking up completely reset.  I do wonder how long before flights are like this and the Air hosts have to have a first class with honours in how to manage people in stasis.  I don’t know how the horror stories of hair over the back of seats and refusing to change seats will continue to fuel peoples anger on the internet if this does come to fruition.

So where are we at? 9.24 am! T-10 hours and 36 minutes………I will survive although it will not be pretty.