I’m going home. Not permanently – just swinging by for a short hol. Off to Amsterdam, then Sydney via Tokyo.

En route to Schipol airport, I make a mental checklist of all the things I want to do while back at home. Oddly enough, they all seem to revolve around food. And aside from the obvious desire for cheesecake, it’s all about pie. Meat pie. Steak and onion. Chicken and veg – I’m not fussy. I start to wonder whether I’d get in trouble for bringing pies back into Europe. After all, that potato pie recipe could be a state secret. I could try smuggling them. Just imagine it – body packing pies. Be worth it though.

At the check-in desk – the most loathed of all airport institutions (with the possible exception of the luggage carousel) – no-one seems to know if my suitcase will go straight through to Sydney or just hang about in Tokyo till some punk finds it in three years’ time out the back of a hangar. And by the way – how much of a load of rubbish is self check-in? Haven’t they noticed you’ve still got to queue anyway to check the luggage through?