What do prisoners think about all day?

My god, has anyone in the history of humanity been more miserable before going to the Caribbean for six weeks?

I remember listening to Alastair Cook shortly after he'd arrived in Bangladesh ahead of England's two month tour of the country (and India) in 2016.  He had left the bedside of his wife just a couple of days after she had given birth.  I can't find the exact quote but he said something along the lines that "I left the house feeling like the worst person on earth and it was a difficult drive down the motorway.  But then when you meet the lads at the airport you start getting excited about the challenge ahead."

I might have 12,472 Test runs less than him but those words came back to me as I sat in a cab on the way to Auckland airport with my pregnant wife and soon-to-be two year old son disappearing out of view.

I wish I had had some team mates to help make me excited.  My fear of flying reduced markedly when I was zipping around Europe and a sense of normality certainly helps.  There's not much more normal than spending time with work mates.  Instead I faced nearly 48 hours of transit across three countries and one date line completely alone.

Two days is a long time to spend on your own.  For sure there are distractions.  Plane taking off, plane coming down, check in, departures, arrivals, passport control, passenger flight cards, clouds out the window, Seinfeld on the iPad, a glass of wine here, a tablet of valium there.  But in and around that there is a lot of time spent thinking about life.

I went through it all on the longest January 10th I will ever experience.  Up early to look after my son, to the park in the morning, the beach in the afternoon, then an early dinner and a cab to the airport.  A 11pm take off, a 12 hour flight, land at LAX and there's still eleven hours of January 10th to go.  Two of which I spent in a queue just trying to leave the airport.

January 11th wasn't much better.  Alarm at 4.30am (which was in fact 1.30am for my NZ body clock) and a four and a half hour flight before I should have even been awake.  Another three hours in Miami (where I decided I'd had enough air conditioned air) before jumping on my third flight another three hours to go until my destination.

There were so many grim aspects.  The leaving, the stress of flying, the lack of comfortable sleep, the early start, the horrible food, the crap conversations going on around me, the impact on my nervous system and that last interminable hour on board flight AA2393.

I arrived after my colleagues had gone to bed.  The next day boy did I chew their ears off.  Couldn't shut up.