If I was asked what I did after spending over an hour looking out at a panoramic view over Gibraltar from HM Queen Elizabeth’s viewing point on the North Face I wouldn’t be able to tell you. If I was asked what I ate for my supper on that my last evening in Gibraltar or even where I ate it I wouldn’t be able to tell you that either. 

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I have a vague recollection of walking back down through the (increasingly familiar) labyrinth that is Gibraltar’s lovely Old Town, occasionally pausing to sit down and reflect but other than that I couldn’t elaborate on anything else about my walk back because my mind had (now) switched to emotional mode. 

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My usual evening routine over the past week normally went something like: shower, change clothes, dinner out, nightcap, bed – and though I have no doubt that’s what I did, I don’t remember a bar of it. I don’t even remember going to sleep; in fact my first awareness since sitting in the Old Town labyrinth on Friday afternoon came late morning on Saturday when I found myself looking out over Commonwealth Park on an initially overcast morning which (by lunchtime) had morphed into a typically beautifully warm and gorgeous Gibraltar day.
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As I looked around me it was almost as though I was looking through a kaleidoscope at every photo of every memory and every experience I’d ever had in Gibraltar; it was as though I was looking at a 40-year calendar being flicked at speed from 1976 to 2016 and I was totally powerless to stop it.

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On one level (or another) I knew that our hotel keys had now been handed in, bags packed, flight tickets checked, transport to the airport confirmed and we were (in effect) in transit. The realisation my departure from Gibraltar was imminent filled me with dread, horror, grief and a feeling of loss that reminded me of being dragged kicking and screaming as a child out of my hometown Newcastle only to be raised in Nottingham because that’s where the work was for my foster dad. 

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(The plaque in Commonwealth Park)

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Aware that Carol was thoughtfully beginning to think ahead I internalised my feelings. “Alan you’ll need to try and get a nap on the plane because we don’t get into Birmingham till after 10pm and you have a four hour drive from the airport” she advised. I smiled and nodded in agreement. 

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A car horn sounded. It was the taxi for the airport.

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