The journey that I’m about to recount may not be as interesting as Odysseus, but I’m very sure that his one wasn’t as stressful as mine. Travelling in those days was probably long and boring, and quite deadly too, but at least you didn’t have to worry about a passport. All you needed was a sword and shield and the best man won.

My journey came to an abrupt halt a couple of days before it was about to begin, when I fell foul to that silly rule where any time on a passport over 10 years is treated as invalidated by any country in the so-called Schengen zone, post-Brexit. Which is ridiculous. A passport should expire when the expiry date says so, and not 3 months before. 

I already had a flight booked and paid for to go to Valencia with my wife. So the plan instead was that she would have to fly on her own whilst I tried to obtain my new passport, and purchase ticket for a later flight.

Luckily my wife managed to book me an appointment for the emergency one day service at HM passport office at Custom House. I was booked in at 8.40am, and if all went well I could collect my passport 4 hours later. 

And like I said, and if you haven’t had noticed already, this isn’t and never will be as interesting as the Odyssey, but it was definitely more stressful.

And so my journey began.

We were up at 5am on a fresh September morning, and made our way to the station where we got on the Heathrow train. At Farringdon I departed, and my wife stayed on to complete her own journey to Heathrow airport. If all was to go to plan, I would be seeing her later that day in Spain.

If it didn’t go to plan, she would be enjoying a week in Spain on her own, drinking, shopping, and living the life.

I had a few hours to kill before my appointment, so I went to the gym to relax by the pool.

I say relax, but relaxing is tough when you have a potentially turbulent day ahead of you. Then I remembered the mindfulness of breathing techniques, so I took a few breaths, touched my feet, and let out a yawn. Suddenly I was sleepy and a little relaxed. 

After a refreshing shower I took the train to Custom House. The entrance rules were strict. My appointment was at 8.40, but I could only enter the premises from 8.30. So I arrived on the dot, showed my papers, went through security and received a ticket with my waiting number. The staff were all friendlier than I imagined. Not that I expected any serial killers to be working here or anything like that, but I just pictured an old small building with no windows, and at the front desk a grumpy old hag giving evil glances to anyone who she perceived was a waste of time. Instead what I got was a slick operation where everyone was polite and knew their duties.

I sat in the fairly spacious waiting room, which had what seemed like an endless row of desks with glass booths.

As soon as I sat down my number was called. The lady at the desk has probably met hundreds of idiots like me who needed a last minute passport, but she was surprisingly sympathetic about my situation. So many people in her position, where they have so much power, can easily make your life more awkward. 

For instance a parking warden is a nobody when at home, but once in their uniform they turn into a power freak who insists on putting a ticket on your car even when you are parked correctly. Thankfully, my passport lady was a good person.

I was soon out and headed back to the train station, I had 4 hours to kill until my passport was ready to collect. 

I headed to Canary Wharf, which offered plenty of coffee shops to choose from.

It was getting busy, with the rush of office workers making their way to work. I work in an office, but these Canary Wharf types have a real smugness about them. I’m not sure if it’s the way they walk, or how they dress, or whether they just have annoying faces, but there was just something really unlikeable about them all.

Anyway I was happy in the knowledge that despite the annoyance of having to get a new passport, I wouldn’t be stuck in an office like those guys today.

I needed some Euros and tried to find the M&S currency exchange. But Canary Wharf is like a maze, and so many offices have their entrances inside the shopping mall itself, and even my phone directions weren’t  too helpful as there were so many floors above and below me. I could follow a corridor which seemed to be leading me the right way, only to end up at the entrance of a banking firm, and being greeted by a security guard expecting me to show a building pass. There was one guard, he was really really tall, and I was almost trapped in his security area as the layout was so confusing. I heard him say his dad was the God of the Seas.

All of this getting lost was tiring so I took couple of coffee breaks at a few trendy looking coffee stalls. One looked like a converted ice cream truck, and the other was pretty much a shed, but the most primitive looking coffee shops tend to make the best coffee. In Thailand, I saw both worlds. One was a coffee bar in an old village, the coffee was brewed over a stove, and the building had no walls, windows or doors. The other shop was a science lab dressed as a coffee shop, with nerdy looking baristas dressed in white coats, and scientific futuristic machinery all around. The sci-fi brew tasted fine, but it was no better than the coffee from a stove. Anyway what I’m trying to say is that whether you buy your coffee from a spaceship or someone’s car boot, it’ll probably taste great.

I eventually found the currency exchange, which strangely enough happened to be in the Food Hall that I was in earlier. 

I was really hungry, and went to Chipotle for a bean bowl. The waitress who served me was nice enough, though I’m sure I saw a few pigs around the back. 

I ate my food quickly and headed back to Custom House.

Back at Custom House, the same staff were working but had been rotated around. The guy who greeted me at the door was now doing bag checks, and he was training up the security guard in how to run the x-ray scanner.

I collected my ticket, took my seat, and again as soon as I took my seat my number was called. I was greeted by a friendly Indian chap who gave me my fresh passport.

As soon as I got outside I booked my flight with EasyJet, the 17:20 to València. I dislike these airline websites that try to sell you everything; seat upgrades, luggage allowance, car rental, insurance, hotels, food and drink, funeral services. You name it and they’ll sell it. My question is, who the hell is even buying it?

It was almost 13:00, I had plenty of time to get to the airport, but one delayed train could derail my entire journey. I rushed to the train station, and got to Farringdon, where I took my connecting train to Gatwick. The train took one little diversion, as the train infront broke down, but other than that there was no drama.

Though I do find that when on an unfamiliar train route train, there is always the paranoia that’s you are on the wrong train. After every stop I double checked I was heading the right way. There could be a conductor on board repeatedly shouting “this train is going to Gatwick!” and I still wouldn’t be convinced I was going the right way.

All I could do was bury my paranoia and stay seated, relying on the fate of the gods. Or seeing as I’m an atheist, the direction of the train tracks. My brain didn’t switch off, I didn’t even put on my headphones just in case I missed an important announcement over the tannoy. Imagine if the tannoy announced that that there was a glitch with the on board system, and we were no longer stopping at Gatwick, and instead it was going to Heathrow, and then Stansted, and we would then be going slowly through Gatwick station, really really really slowly, and the red carpet was laid out on the platform that led directly to the Valencia check-in desk, but the train wouldn’t stop at all due to the glitch. I didn’t want my journey to end due to a glitch, so the headphones stayed off and I kept my 5 senses with me. 

Even though I didn’t think this at the time, a 6th sense would have been useful. Imagine if ghosts floated around, and they offered transportation directions in exchange for points into heaven. What a cool world that would be, though again I’m an atheist, so that definitely wouldn’t happen.

Anyway, I made it to Gatwick airport. The security desk had sign at a giant sign at the front that read “waiting time, 0 minutes”. 

I couldn’t believe my luck. And the security scanners were the brand new ones where you didn’t need to unpack your electronics or liquids. I only had to take off my belt and trainers. 

I was through security, and a huge weight had lifted.

I had a few hours before my flight, and spent most of my time trying to find a working water fountain.

Anyway, now I’m safely on board my easyJet plane, relieved that my worst of my journey is over. Unlike Odysseus, I didn’t have to dress as a begger. Nor did I have to kill anyone. And thankfully I won’t have to fight any of my wive’s suitors who for the past 20 years have been plotting to take my crown. But, I did have to take a few trains and wait around a lot. 

Christopher Nolan may not ever create a film about my journey, but in 3000 years’ time, when the best stories have already been told a hundred times over, somebody might.