In my African Dream

As I write this, I'm flying at 36,000 feet over North Africa.


Well, no I'm not actually, but tonight I would have been, had Nationwide Airlines - the airline with which our flight to South Africa been booked - not gone into receivership on Tuesday afternoon.

Apart from the fact that we're now over £1200 out of pocket for the flights alone, and have also lost all the deposits we'd paid for our planned epic journey through the Drakensberg, down the Wild Coast and Garden Route into Cape Town, we will miss the chance to spend a few days with Phil's best man Gary and his family. Not to mention our planned meet with my best friend Lillian and her husband, who we have not seen for nearly 3 years, and all the guys in Joburg who had been planning braai's to welcome us "home". For us, still sitting at home wishing we were on our way after months missing the place and people we love, it's heartbreaking. However, our grief at a missed holiday must pale into insignificance compared to those employees of Nationwide who toughed it out through the airline's troubles in December only to now find themselves out of work at a time when large sections of the unemployed and low-paid populace in South Africa are marching through the streets protesting at the cost of bread, fuel and all other comestibles which are expensive enough to those of us lucky enough to be in work.

There is already talk of "interested parties" to buy out Nationwide, but this cannot be in time to preserve peoples jobs or provide us with our long-ago-planned holiday. And I am sure that the famous Nationwide dessert trolley has wheeled its last circumnavigation of the aircraft, which is a pity. It was a good airline, with good staff and we started many very good holidays on its lone 767 which did the trip from London Gatwick to Johannesburg 3 times a week. Now it is no more. Just another sign of the times. And I'm sitting here at home, wishing I was now falling uncomfortably asleep in the knowledge that I would be waking up to sunrise over Africa and a wonderful month of quality time with friends and family. I'd be lying if I said I was happy right now.