Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

How Exciting It Must Be to Travel Like You Do

Really? When I recount bits of the more aggravating journeys with my dear husband, people shake with laughter. They are clearly of the mind common to the human race which delights in the discomfiture of others. Or, in this case, just the one; namely, me.

The thrill of it all starts as we pack. He insists on taking in his cabin luggage all fourteen of his fat, red, diplomatic passports. Only one is current, but he doesn’t want to ‘get caught’ without an up-to-date visa to Sweden or China, which will be in any one of the other thirteen. He also throws in a slew of foreign currencies, including coins, in order to have the appropriate money to buy new clothes if our suitcases go astray. These items, together with ‘essential papers’ in heavy bound files, his binoculars, eyeglass repair kits, various medications, mostly dated circa 1964, and other necessities I gave up long ago even trying to identify, make his ‘carry on’ bags weigh a tonne more than his actual suitcase which will go in baggage. I remind him that we are destined for yet another routine trip to the Kingdom of Tonga, via Auckland, and are unlikely to be stranded anywhere in Scandinavia or Asia. With an air of the truly experienced traveller, he mutters that, "You never know with airlines", and that, he "always likes to be prepared". Baden Powell would have been proud of him.

I suggest he put the little of what’s left of his packing into my suitcase, to cut down on the number of bags we’ll have to lug through the different terminals. He refuses to do this. Presumably, one of the things he prepares for is that we’ll be separated and in quite different aircraft when the luggage goes astray. I think of settling for an amicable divorce right then and there. It would surely save a small fortune in trauma counselling. In the end, he has slung over his shoulders three carry-on bags, which are so heavy he can’t help me in the least with my two.

We negotiate the local airport shuttle bus reasonably well until he brings it to a halt. Rather, he has me persuade the unwilling driver and an angry passenger, who is only going to make her flight by a squeak if at all, to make an unscheduled stop, so that he can have a pee. Apparently, one just never knows with bladders, either.

The walk from the airport bus stop at Tullamarine to the Departures hall has all the exhilaration of us imitating salmon fighting their way upstream a fierce river as we manoeuvre our bags through the advancing hordes along the busy paths and concourses. As always, the hordes have a greater number of larger and heavier bags than we do, and wield them like weapons as they swoop down on us. He proves his mettle though, keeps calm, his head high, his step measured, and arrives at the check-in counter ahead of me looking cool and unruffled.

"Keep an eye on these, would you?" he says, as he deposits three of his four bags at my feet when I finally get there. "I need a pee."

Another one? He goes before I can mention that, having endured a tense, bumpy, two-hour bus ride, so do I. But there I sit, unable to leave seven pieces of luggage, while he swans off into the crowds and is soon lost to sight. After what seems like hours, when almost all the other passengers have checked in, I see him waltzing about in an exclusive airport menswear shop not too far away. He doesn’t like being shouted at in public, so, daring all, I waddle over to him as fast as I can with my legs crossed, and bade him stand guard over the luggage while I find a loo. The Ladies, as you guess, is located about a hundred kilometres in the opposite direction.

Once we have our boarding passes, we face the fun of the security check. The amount of metal in my body sets the alarm off like a siren, necessitating a female security officer to be found to run a sensor over me, and he is always ‘randomly checked’ as being of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’, although he isn’t at all. Unless, of course, there’s something else he hasn’t told me, which accounts for all those visas into Kazakhstan, or Afghanistan, or wherever? In any event, he’s always painstakingly and thoroughly searched. He’s lost weight so that when his belt with its large metal buckle in the shape of Texas is removed, his trousers promptly fall down. This happens every time. He then holds them up with one hand while, with the other, removes a few kilos of coinage from their pockets. Of course, he then has to count all of this money again at the other side of the X-ray machine. At that point, too, he inevitably enters into a long argument about the Swiss army knife he always neglects to put in the suitcase destined for the baggage section. He comes to some no doubt expensive compromise about the transport of this precious penknife, of which I am never apprised. He shuffles slowly along in his socks and sagging trousers to retrieve his belt and shoes. He looks about and finds me where I’ve been perched for about an hour with the rest of his cabin luggage.

"Are you ready?" he says.

I do not reply.

We begin the trek to the departure gate. I’m already exhausted and we have yet to get on the Melbourne to Sydney flight. Why didn’t I think when I moved us to regional Victoria, that we were still committed to travel often to Tonga, and most of the flights we need leave from Sydney: ‘the gateway to the South Pacific’? The trip now involves hops, steps, and a couple of long jumps to get from home to Melbourne, on to Sydney, and then, if we don’t choose to squeeze onto the overcrowded, direct flight from Sydney to Tonga, which would get us in at three am, two more flights: one from Sydney to Auckland, and another from Auckland to Tonga. That’s quite a lot of jumps.

The next step is to catch the shuttle bus from Sydney’s Domestic terminal to its Overseas Departures terminals. Here, I heave my bags onto the crowded bus and look for a seat. This can mean the loss of an eye or even concussion from large backpacks attached to even larger backpackers. My husband takes all this in his stride with his usual poise. I glower and try to protect my face and head and feet from being mashed. This leaves onlookers wondering what that marvellous-looking man is doing with such a hunched-over, ferret-faced woman. Oh, did I forget to mention that he is urbane, handsome, and charming? Otherwise, you might be wondering, as I do at times like this, what I am doing with him at all.

Once on the path outside the Sydney Departures terminal, we gather up our bags and what’s left of our wits, present our ongoing boarding passes, and go through the same security checks all over again with the same results. My strength and patience are running decidedly low as we trudge along four thousand kilometres of corridors looking for the correct departure lounge.

Here, I make the near-fatal mistake of glancing longingly in the window of a duty-free shop selling handmade chocolates, as by now I am sorely in need of a sugar rush. I look up just in time to see him walking grandly down a sloping walkway off to the right into a gate labelled, ‘Amsterdam via Dubai’. Forgetting house rules, I scream at him just before he vanishes into its maw.

"Stop. Not that one. We’re going to Auckland. Auckland!"

He reverses without missing a step or giving a single glance in my direction, and resumes his dignified promenade along the main corridor. A woman sitting nearby doubles up with laughter as I hobble after him.

"I know what it’s like, dear," she says. "I’ve got one just like him at home."

But mine isn’t at home: he’s on the loose and heading rapidly to who knows where.

At last, we board the Auckland-bound flight. Due to a clause in his government contract, and the huge number of air points we’ve chalked up by our ridiculously peripatetic mode of living, each of which is engraved on my face by a new and deeper line, we turn left. In Business Class we are shown to a middle row of three seats. Usually, I am the one who resists being squashed between two other people but, this time, my nerves shot, I opt for the aisle seat so he can’t escape without walking over me.

He is at once recognised and greeted rapturously by one of the regular air hostesses, who adores him, as all women do, and presses a flute of champagne into his hand. She then absentmindedly gives me one as an afterthought. He courteously begins a conversation with a very little, old, lady seated on his left. I try deep breathing in between gulps of champagne. I’ve always found counting the bubbles in a glass of champers much more conducive to a light doze than counting sheep. I am on my third when he nudges me.

"This dear lady on my left is English. She used to be a nanny or a governess to His Majesty when he was a boy in the UK. He’s invited her out to Tonga for a holiday. It’s the first time she’s been to Tonga, or seen him for about fifty years. She’s excited beyond measure."

"Jolly good show!" I say.

I count bubbles in a fresh glass before I close my eyes.

After take-off, my husband also closes his eyes and sinks at once into a deep slumber. His sleep might be sweet but it is by no means dreamless. Since very early childhood he has suffered from violent nightmares, which come without warning and which always involve matters of life and death. His only explanation is that he was born next to a cemetery and at that time a tevolo, or devil, entered his baby self. That of course could account for a lot. In any event, the vibration and noise of the plane drowns out the usual danger signals of his tensing and muttering. Two hours later, I am roused by the roars of angry males, the ameliorative twittering of the hostess, and the sight of my husband, his eyes wide shut, energetically strangling the man sitting in front of him.

"It’s all right, sir," the hostess says to the man. "Please, try to understand. We know this gentleman behind you. He’s delightful, but he’s just had a bad dream."

My guess is that the man reclined his seat so far back that it has impinged on my husband’s leg room. His bad dreams are always about his killers invading his personal space. I suspect that the cemetery he was born near must have been a very small and crowded one, to project such a claustrophobic tevolo into him.

The hostess brings the man in front a stiff drink and gives another to my husband. She then attends to the elderly lady, who has done nothing throughout all this but flutter her frail hands about and utter tiny, refined, bird-like cries of: "Oh, dear!"

The hostess gets her settled in another seat with a hot cup of tea. I wonder what the elderly lady might tell the king about the mishap. Being English, perhaps she won’t even mention it. In any case, people who have flown often with my husband know all about his nightmares.

"The person I feel most sorry for is that poor, dear, lady. She’s a perfect English gentlewoman," my husband says.

He settles back for another nap.

I get a firm grip on his wrist and stay awake on murder alert for the rest of the journey.

At Auckland airport, we pass down another four thousand kilometres of corridors. I am now purblind with weariness and the weight of my cabin bags makes my arms feel like they are dragging on the ground like a chimpanzee’s. It’s a relief to sling them onto the security carousel that trudges its serpentine way around and around until it slithers under the X-ray machine.

Where it stops.

"Whose is this handbag?" a New Zealand Customs official roars.

"That’s mine," I say.

"What’s that red blob, then?" he says, pointing a beefy finger at his screen.

"A snack for the journey but I didn’t eat it."

"And it is...?"

"A tiny apple."

The image of an Australian apple contaminating pristine New Zealand air, especially as Australia has just banned the importation of New Zealand apples to its shores, incites the honest Kiwi Customs officer to apoplectic rage.

"That’s a two hundred dollar on the spot fine, madam," he says.

"It’s an honest mistake. Let me eat it here."

"You won’t move an inch until you’ve paid."

"Please, couldn’t you overlook it just this once, or send an invoice so I can deal with it later. We’ve a tight connection to make."

"Pay now, or we’ll pursue you in the courts. That can make it hard for you to come here again. Immigration have all your passport details, you know."

I rant and rave and almost stamp my foot in frustration, something I’ve really only read about people doing.

My husband idles up behind me at this point, gives the Kiwi Customs officer a brotherly nod and a wink, and slips his credit card to him with a beaming smile.

"I’ll pay. I see we’re holding up the queue."

A long line of weary travellers gathered behind us makes me feel more foolish than I do already. In a rage, I shoulder the offending bag and trudge on.

"I’m so sorry, darling. That was silly of me," I say, almost in tears.

My husband smiles another beatific smile and puts his hand on my back.

"Oh, it’s all right. Women have always had trouble with apples, it seems," he says.