Zoom no more

Like Rudyard Kipling, who wrote:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
(...) If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same; ...

my sister says I've got to emulate the forbearance of the Stoics and not let myself get too agitated over such things as yesterday's collapse of Zoom Airlines that has suddenly put 600 people out of work and 60,000 passengers, including our mother, in a costly predicament. However, I can't help wondering whether Zoom's bankruptcy might not be followed by others, now that the fuel prices are climbing; even as I write this, comes the latest news that Alitalia has become insolvent as well. I feel rather divided about this. In one respect I think it's good that every frequent traveller is being forced to consider the lavishness with which we've been using up the world's fuel supplies. The increasing risk and nuisance of taking cheap flights teaches our let's-have-it-all society a lesson. On the other hand, from a more personal point of view, Chris and I didn't anticipate this trend when we decided ten years ago to make ourselves at home far from the rest of our family. It could become increasingly difficult to visit one another in future, and I have the feeling that we aren't the only ones thinking such thoughts.

Anyhow, in the immediate future, my sister has managed to book Mum onto a flight with Air Canada, taking off not next Monday but a week next Wednesday, and not from Cardiff to Toronto but from Heathrow to Montreal.

I shall be at that airport to meet her.