I knew this journey was going to be long.

Four planes, one coach, one train and two cars long, to be precise.

What I hadn’t anticipated was having enough material for a blog post before I’d even managed to leave New Zealand.

It started in Dunedin, where the wind was doing its best to interfere with my carefully organised plans. Air New Zealand offered me an alternative route because of the weather, so instead of spending most of the day hanging around Auckland Airport as originally planned, I found myself heading to Christchurch first.

Fine. Christchurch it was.

The flight itself was uneventful enough, but on landing I discovered what I can only assume is an interesting piece of airport planning.

Four toilets.

Four.

A plane lands, a large proportion of its female passengers get off having spent the last half-hour thinking, I’ll just wait until we land, and we are presented with four toilets.

There was, unsurprisingly, a queue.

I decided men had designed them.

Then came security.

I have a special relationship with airport security. I am almost always pulled aside, so rather than putting it off I decided to get it over with.

Sure enough, through the time machine I went — arms above my head, wondering, as I always do, exactly how much of me the thing can actually see.

And, as usual, I was frisked.

At least I wasn’t disappointed.

Eventually I found myself safely airside with an hour to kill, laptop plugged in, phone at 83%, watch at 84%, power bank fully charged and absolutely nothing requiring my attention.

Which was when the entertainment arrived.

Two South African men were sitting behind me having one of those conversations that you aren’t actually listening to, except that they’re sitting approximately one foot away and apparently believe the entire departure lounge would benefit from hearing it.

They were talking about financials.

Then AI.

Apparently you need an AI agent.

More importantly, apparently you have to train it like a dog.

This immediately gave me a mental picture of a Labrador bounding enthusiastically across an office with a spreadsheet in its mouth.

Good AI. Clever boy. Sit. Stay. Analyse my investment portfolio.

I also learned that if I don’t get involved in all this fairly soon, I’m going to be left behind.

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m being left behind from, but they seemed very certain about it.

The conversation moved on.

There was something about expensive earrings. Something about placating a wife. Quite a lot of financial discussion. Several fucks.

And then saggy shoes.

At least, I thought they were saggy shoes.

Further listening established that they were, in fact, saggy boat shoes, which I’m glad we cleared up because I wouldn’t want to publish inaccurate footwear information.

By this point I had stopped pretending that I wasn’t listening.

Somewhere along the way, we actually started talking.

And that is how, having left home that morning intending simply to travel to England, I arrived in Christchurch Airport and was offered a job by two South Africans.

In compost.

I haven’t even left New Zealand yet.