Being 42

Wednesday 29th January 2025, 1.55pm (day 4,906)

Four days late, I finally leave St Helena. There were genuine concerns in the morning that the flight would be cancelled yet again — apparently at about 9.30am visibility on the runway was practically zero — but, hallelujah, the clouds cleared and the incoming plane duly landed, about half an hour late (and of course carrying passengers who had all been waiting since Saturday themselves). An hour after this picture was taken, we boarded, took off and I type this in a hotel at Cape Town airport, waiting for my flight back to Heathrow this evening.

This is the blog’s 76th photo to be taken on St Helena: the first one being 9th November 2021 at the same place, the airport, the day before I began my 10-day period of quarantine (spent in a rather nice house not far from where I have been staying this time, Alarm Forest). Will this be the last shot from here, though? At the moment I have no definite plans to return — and, perhaps more significantly, no more research grant money to do so. Data collection for the project is done and I really should now concentrate on writing it all up. But, you know, never say never.