Why do I do it?

Travel, I mean! I really am not a good traveller, I have decided

I have already described for you the horror flight that I had to take recently in that elongated Pringles tube that called itself an airplane and “hops” (huh! That’s what fluffy bunnies are supposed to do!) around the Channel Islands. Well I recently went back to Jersey to visit some of my friends and made sure that I was booked to fly on a proper sized aircraft – you know, one with a stewardess to serve a drink… one with the captain hidden in his cockpit up front where he should be… one where I am not sitting right next to a door that might fly open at any moment! I was sure that the journey would not be too trying, even though I much prefer to be firmly planted on terra-firma

How wrong can a girl be?

On the flight home, I noticed it was quite windy, but nobody thought to warn us that we would be flying headlong into a Tsunami that appeared to have gathered over Gatwick ready for our arrival! As we came in to land, the plane was rocking and rolling side to side like a fairground “attraction”. It was horrible. The wings were all over the place! And as we were coming right down on our final approach suddenly the engines screamed out loud and we shot up, up, up…. I thought I was on the Space Shuttle! And then we spent half an hour going around in a big circle being buffeted around in the wind like a stick on the surface of a stormy sea, while the captain explained to us that just as we were coming in to land, the aircraft in front had been so badly blown by the wind that one of it’s wing tips had actually touched the runway surface and been damaged – thus causing a major emergency scramble for the airport fire and medical services! And closing the runway –just as we were going to touch down!!

Well, hearing this certainly gave me added confidence for our chances of a safe landing when our turn eventually came about, so I was already to jump up and demand to be given a parachute and left to fend for my own survival! But at this point the (rather charming, I must say) young steward, who had been watching my knuckles getting whiter and whiter and the clumps of hair that I was tearing out in impotent frustration, decided that enough was enough and he slid quietly into the seat next to me and held my hand for the rest of the circling until we did eventually make it down onto land! Now that is what I call good service!

And no, I didn’t slip him my web-site address, although I would rather have liked to see him again!

(To be continued…)