It just doesn't add up.This morning I can steadfastly dispute that the severity of the withdrawal symptoms from caffeine are not an urban myth. They are, quite simply, real. Very real
Since the purchase of an Espresso Machine, my intake of coffee is already Italian in it’s quantity and strength, and before my detox was to begin on Sunday morning, I saw no harm in increasing the final intake. Friday saw the usual 3 espressos before sunrise, followed by hourly shot updates, and, before my run, the consumption of a five hour energy drink. Not content with the status quo, a Red Bull mid afternoon. It can only be said that, come 9pm, I was in no fit state to be lying quietly on my children's’ beds to read them a bedtime story, nor unwind for the evening. Having run out of elastoplasts I was desperately trying to improvise in making a plaster to wrap around my thumbs to prevent my chewing the nail right off.
Saturday, I sufficed with one coffee to ease myself into the detox on Sunday.
Sunday morning brought fresh horrors as I woke with a headache of gargantuan proportions, inextinguishable with Paracetomol, Neurofen, or even “for emergency use only” Codeine. By midday I was a quivering wreck, pale, sweating and irascible. It was no use. Conveniently eating lunch in an Italian restaurant an “esspresso doppio” is ordered aand consumed simultaneously. Problem immediately solved. I think I will save that particular mountain for another day, but it does beg the one question. What the hell is in an espresso ?
I couldn't but help admit last week that my memory is starting to fail me, and the realisation that a Moleskine notebook and pen are not just fashion accessories anymore. No sooner had I tried to recall, unsuccessfully, what I had promised myself I would do only moments earlier, I was comforted by the fact that there may be someone out there with a worse memory than mine. It also coincided with a newspaper article citing jet lag as the biggest perpetrator of memory loss.
Last week, returning from JFK, and the associated roughness with such a strong tailwind, no one managed to sleep in the almost record 5 hour 40 minute flight time. Our early arrival at Heathrow prevented us from taxing onto a stand immediately, so we sat on a disused taxiway for an hour, and, as it was the first time the passengers had experienced stillness all night, most of them fell to sleep. We eventually pulled on to our stand, exhausted, and after completing our cockpit checks and filling in the prerequisite paperwork, stood at the now empty bar whilst the cabin crew did their security checks, once the passengers had disembarked. It was therefore with great amusement that one of the cabin crew approached, holding a Business Class passenger’s suit trousers, jacket and shoes, that she had found behind one of the seats We wondered at what particular meeting during the day would he realise that he was still wearing his airline issue sleep suit and socks !
Still chuckling as I got to the car park. Then had to make a telephone call to our engineers office to ask them to retrieve my sunglasses that I had left in the flight deck.
