Give me Africa’s sun any day

I’m in the wrong place. I should be in Johannesburg, or at least en route, but not here in Dublin, still at home with a packed suitcase in the hallway while, outside, there’s this thing happening called weather. A lot of weather. They used to say the Eskimos have 100 words for snow. Apparently that’s a myth, but they’re really missing a trick: there are the soft wet flakes that melt on impact, the hard pellets of frozen snow, the crisp big ones you can catch on your tongue, the whisper flakes that land like petals without a sound, there’s the snow that comes from all directions in all sizes, burning cheeks raw, and there’s the secondary snow, blasted from rooftops and treetops, squalling in bitter eddies as if trying to catch itself.

Then there’s this snow, which is all of the above.

The Beast from the East blew in, hard, from Siberia, and then Storm Emma arrived, too, from the south, and the two of them went to war, threatening to slamdunk any airplanes with the temerity to take off straight back to the ground.

I was due to fly five days ago but, half an hour before I left for the airport, my flight was cancelled due to the storms and automatically rebooked for the next day.

I had a day in limbo, a stolen day with nothing asked of me, so I went to the movies and to the pub, and had takeaway pizza for dinner. I was chipper – I’d be gone tomorrow …

The next day, my new flight was cancelled and rescheduled, then cancelled again, and I could not rebook it and no alternatives were offered by the airline. The e-mail suggested I go to the airport, but the airport was closed – no flights in or out.

I rebooked on a different airline on a different day.

Then I joined the Armageddon queue at the shops – the queue that went on for ever – clutching what I’d salvaged from the denuded shelves: the last two butternuts.

There was no milk or bread to be had, then the shops closed, then everything closed. A fresh blizzard was incoming: the government said we should get indoors.

My next flight was cancelled, then the one after ...

By the time you read this, who knows where I’ll be.

But I’d have risked every flight, you know, I’d have risked it all just to feel the heat of the African sun.