Diary
Jojo Moyes
ALL PROSPECT COLUMNIST ILLUSTRATIONS BY NICK TAYLOR
Back from Los Angeles; my first trip abroad in two years. For the 10 years prior to the pandemic, I travelled the globe relentlessly, my British Airways gold card brandished like a talisman—or perhaps a perverse totem of self-inflicted masochism. I’m a good traveller, the veteran of numerous book and film tours: I can pack a suitcase in 20 minutes, I know my way around a dozen hub airports, I can pick the best flights to minimise jet lag, and I often fall asleep during take-off. I had looked forward to it for weeks.
Reader: I missed my flight. Having shepherded my family through Omicron isolation, nerve-wracking PCRs and a tentative Christmas, I was undone by a traffic jam. I bit my nails through two and a half hours on the M25 and missed it by two minutes. I cried hot, unembarrassed tears at check-in. “Why are you so late?” said the check-in woman, and I fought the urge to hurl myself over the desk, fists first.