Flying Without Wings

Why me? Why always me? I have one big phobia in life, one, flying, and the fear is real, palpable and manifests in increasing bouts of panic accompanied by moments of insanity. I once, midway across the Atlantic shouted (loudly) does anybody else smell smoke. That's how scared I am of flying, it induces madness.
The fear however is inversely proportional to the size of the plane, the bigger it is the better I feel. I'm not sure why I think it's something to do with suspension of reality. In a really really big plane I can sit in the middle, far from the windows and pretend none of this is happening. They also have sections so you can only see a select few people, which looks much more reassuring than a whole plane full of expectant holiday makers preparing to meet their doom.
So it was looking dodgy before I even boarded flight 1844 to Majorca. For a start it was a prop plane. A prop plane! I swear they follow me around the country, in fact there may just be one, old prop plane in service that the powers above pull out just for me whenever I book a holiday. Prop planes shudder and shake and (most frighteningly) display far too much of their inner workings than I care to see. One is never completely reassured when the brightest minds in aeronautical engineering decide that two ceiling fans are just what's needed to keep this plane on the correct trajectory.
At least when the fans are hidden you can kid yourself that chains and cogs and other man made stuff are not responsible for keeping the plane up. Instead a host of fairies and heavenly bodies are beating their wings furiously (but most importantly magically), and holding the vehicle aloft in flight. No relying on Barry The Engineer coming to work with a hangover and servicing my plane with half an eye on a chip buttie, oh no, angels and fairies are responsible for my flight, and they don't make mistakes (or drink).
So I got on the plane with a huge sense of foreboding, sat down and clutched the arm rests looking all around me like some scary eyed lemming. The captain came over the tannoy welcoming us to flight 1844 and wishing us well, which was good, he sounded optimistic and soothed my nerves a little. I mean if the captain thinks we've got a chance of making it then we may well do, excellent.
But then he made his fatal error, one that removed any thought that he may be able to make an accurate prediction as to our survival chances. He made a joke.
Noooooooooooo. Husband shifted uncomfortably in his seat, he knew, he knew. I did not, under any circumstances want a Captain who would rather be a comedian. Forget aspirations of fame and fortune and trying out your material on your passengers. I mean focus on the job man. The important one of steering the plane to Spain. I mean, we wouldn't even be a good measure of the joke's success anyway would we? We were bound to laugh, he was the only one who knew how to fly the plane.
I didn't want some jolly sounding captain who delivered the weather report in a jocular fashion. I wanted a serious captain, one who delivered the weather report with a deep voice, slightly strained from the years at Cambridge studying the finer points of plane flying. One who had emerged after ten years graft, blinking in the sun clutching a first class honours in Averting Disaster, and a special interest thesis in Keeping The Little Seatbelt Light On To Stop Passengers Getting Up And Possibly Rocking The Plane. But no, instead we got Ko Ko the Kaptin, who probably steers the plane with his knees while working on material for his next gig. Whoop di do.
So it was up to me, I had to be the eyes and ears of the plane. The pilot wasn't up to it obviously, he was jocular with unfulfilled dreams. It was me or my maker, and I wasn't ready for that yet. I dutifully reported every rattle, every air pocket and every hum to the air stewards, I checked the wings every two minutes for signs of leakage, fire or falling offness and reported back solemnly. I was a help I tell you, a help, take that Ko Ko, ha!
I'm not sure about what happened next it all went a bit hazy, because this was the point at which the free wine started arriving, as much as I liked smiled the air steward, did he know how much that would be? Apparently they'd never done this before, but they were making a special allowance just for little old me. Probably as a thankyou for all my hard work or something.

Things I Have Said To My Husband Today

• No you can't go out tomorrow night


• Because we're having a dinner party


• Oh good I'm glad you remembered


• I'm so looking forward to a nice civilised dinner party


• I've worked really hard at the food


• Nice food


• Nice as in I followed a recipe and I'm going to present it nicely


• Lamb


• No not spaghetti bolognese


• I know it's your favourite


• But it's not really a dinner party dish


• Well just for once you can try something new


• I'm not doing spaghetti bolognese


• No you can't have something separate


• Spaghetti bolognese is not a good side dish with lamb


• And please don't go off and eat in front of the TV this time


• Because it's rude


• And people want to talk to you


• No you will not make yourself as boring as possible


• Because our friends are coming and you like them


• Three other couples


• That makes eight of us


• No not eleven,


• Three couples plus us is eight


• Where did you get eleven


• You invited Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head?


• Why?


• We don't always invite them


• Maybe to a barbecue but not to a civilised dinner party


• Because they're the least civilised people I know


• Well you shouldn't have invited them


• They're not coming


• There's no room and I've bought the lamb


• No they can't just eat in front of the TV


• Well you shouldn't have promised them I'd do spaghetti bolognese


• So in a nutshell you invited Pokey, Stu and Bucket Head to watch the game tomorrow night while I cooked and served Spaghetti Bolognese?


• In case you found the dinner party boring


• Well you'll just have to phone them and cancel


• They have their own flat to watch TV in


• Why haven't they got any electricity?


• Well if they'd paid their bill they would have


• So basically they're coming to eat our food and enjoy free electricity?


• Excellent


• Well I suppose they can


• But we'll have to shut the door so we can't hear the TV in the kitchen


• And you're sitting at the table


• There's no we'll see


• No matter how boring you make yourself


• Yes even if you pretend to fall asleep


• Good that's settled


• Lamb for eight and spaghetti bolognese for three


• No not four


• I'm glad you agree

Say Cheese! (part two)

Ok, so the whole Sage Cheese Alternative Meal (SCAM) thingy really got everybody riled up - if only I'd known sooner I'd just have blogged about cheese every week, forget Husbands and dogs, cheese seems to be where it's at. So I thought I'd give you a quick update.
Despite never ever starting a diet (except for doing the food shopping bit) I decided to at least attempt this one, purely out of a sense of devotion to you all you understand, that's how much I love you (sorry for the mushiness I'm high on sage). It was, as I said, a simple mixing of ingredients, quick and easy. Even my diet buddy Taff (he supplies the cream puffs) thought he could manage it which is saying something. Taff once looked for instructions on a cabbage, on finding none he proceeded to boil the entire thing, whole, in one pan. He then attempted to mash a large, over boiled cabbage for no apparent reason except he thought cabbage should be mashed ( I SWEAR this happened). He's a great diet buddy, everything he produces is inedible. I once went on holiday with him and lost ten pounds, despite drinking my body weight in Chardonnay.
Anyway, you all saw it coming, the sage cheese was nothing of the sort. It tasted of olive water, sage and garlic, but not at all of cheese. This was cheese at its worst, non cheese if you like. Crikey even the Americans wouldn't eat this one (sorry dear beloved American Readers*, I do love you all but cheese is your thing isn't it? You do all sorts of weird and wonderful things just to get more cheese in your diet. Cheese-in-a-can anyone? I didn't know whether to squirt it on my toast or decorate the Christmas tree with it).
So I have abandoned the vegan all raw food thing in favour of the aisle six diet. It is far preferable and there's no false advertising, all I have to do for this one is consume food solely from aisle six of the supermarket. I devised the diet myself and picked the number at random. Pleasingly aisle six is the biscuit aisle and the manager has promised to try to place some wine and chocolate there too, I think she's expecting a bumper month. And she'd be right. I'm really going to stick at this one, wish me luck.


*You can sue me by clicking here