First Sight

I'm sure there's not much I can tell you about airports that you don't already know, perhaps wish you didn't, but to be fair Gatwick is a pretty standard efficient working airport.

I had a window seat and the thrill of take-off worked it's old magic. My only complaint is that the windows on planes are too small, little more than portholes, but then I'm one of those who would be happy with a glass floor.

And the Surrey landscape was a little drab in Summer haze and evening light and I lost interest, withdrawing instead to the comforting drone of a podcast and a little doze.

I came round when we were leaving the Spanish coast and flying high above the Med, glimpsed only briefly through veils of cloud. But soon something else came into view. The sea had seemed endless, eternal, but suddenly there reared up, like a concrete wave, a monstrous wall of rocky cliffs and mountains, unbelievably craggy and VAST!

Behind, equally overwhelming craggy and majestic, was a bank of cloud, of mottled pearl grey and  opal hues in the hazy sunset.

It was jawdropping sight, so much so that once self-consciousness returned I checked other passengers to see if my reaction had registered with them. I think I had simultaneously realised that THESE were the Tramuntana, that I would be walking in only a few days’ time.