There is nothing speedy about speedy boarding

When my black passport arrived in the post, I decided to take a trip.

I’m not a good flier, so the absence of foreign travel for three years had to be making my fear of flying potentially insurmountable. A one and a half hour flight to Cork felt manageable. The builder boyfriend had already been over to have a look at this farm we’ve had our eye on.

Incidentally, I know this passport is meant to be dark blue, but it’s not, it’s black. And to make it more alarming, the picture of me inside it is bright orange.

I had slapped cheap make-up on my face and was wearing an orange T-shirt when I went to a booth by the checkout at Sainsbury’s which turned out to have a Day-Glo orange seat. Consequently, I look like an Oompa Loompa.

The passport office accepted this, however, so when my funereal new passport arrived I decided I would look at this farmhouse the BB had declared magical but wrecked, and we would make a decision on whether to emigrate, a couple of Brexiteers crawling back into the EU with our tails between our legs because we can’t afford a farm in our precious Britain.

My suspicions were correct because once I got to the airport I became horribly feared up by the crowds and the queuing. The BB checked me in using a blasted app on my phone because there was no one at the budget airline check-in desk, and he deposited me by departures.

Then began the shouting of the guards as I joined the heaving masses snaking around the dividers. ‘Keep moving! Keep moving! Close the gaps!’ It was hideous. I marched dejectedly forwards, sweating with panic about the liquids that might still be in my bag. On the other side of the scanners, in order to get to the gate, I was forced to walk a complete circle through the entirety of duty free where women with plastic faces tried to force perfume on me. Had it always been like this?

I had not paid for speedy boarding, because I did remember that much. I sat and waited in comfort with six other passengers as more than a hundred people stood queuing to get on the plane because they had paid extra. I noticed there was no corridor attached to the plane by the gate. I fancied they were being allowed to try and jump across. Some were becoming so desperate, I suspected, they were attempting to bridge the gap with makeshift rope ladders. Some were quite possibly bungee-jumping across. Others simply jumped into thin air, I imagined, breaking their legs on impact, then attempted to crawl up the landing gear.

After 45 minutes, the six of us who had not paid extra were invited to comfortably board the plane.

I had also refused to pay extra to choose my seat, resisting countless automated messages telling me random seat selection would make me extremely unhappy.

But my random seat turned out to be in the extra leg room, one of the best on the plane. As I sat down, a handsome young Spanish steward bent over and asked me and the two passengers either side of me: ‘In an emergency are you willing to assist us in evacuating the aircraft by pulling the handle on the door?’ I worked out that was what he said afterwards, because his accent was so thick it wasn’t immediately obvious, but we knew what he meant because he pointed to the alarming illustrations on the seatbacks in front of us, so we all just nodded.

He moved to the next row, also by the emergency doors, and repeated the same sentence, upon which the elderly Irish lady behind me turned to her daughter and said: ‘What’s that, Maria?’ And her daughter said: ‘You have to pull the handle, Mammy, to open the door.’

‘Good God, Maria,’ said the lady, ‘I couldn’t open that door.’ ‘You won’t have to, Mammy. You just have to say you will.’

But the lady would not lie. She told the steward: ‘I couldn’t do it but my daughter here will. It’ll be no problem for her.’

The steward sighed. ‘I’m sorry but you all three have to agree, otherwise you have to move seats.’

‘Mammy! Just say you’ll pull the handle because if you don’t we’ll have to move and I’m loving this extra leg room!’

So the lady said yes she would and the steward went away. The engines began to warm up, and I started muttering my prayers, and lining my hands up on the seat arms to make them straight enough to ensure the plane didn’t crash. And then I heard the lady behind me ask her daughter: ‘So when do we have to open the door?’