Overheard after flying (with kids)

Last week I was listening in on my two sons and LB’s best friend D, the cutest boy with the most beautiful white-blonde curls.

“Just look at those gorgeous curls,” I always say to his mother, as though she hasn’t noticed!

D’s dad is also a pilot and D had just returned from a trip home to see family in South Africa. We’d just got back from visiting my in-laws in Lebanon and LB and D were over the moon to see each other again.

In between discussing D’s new pirate ship, the three boys started talking about their trip. Obviously, being expat children, seeing family involves an airplane ride and it made me smile how small boys, who know no other way, view the mode of transport that takes them *home*.

BB: “I just got back from Leb-alon.”

LB: “And meeee!”

BB: “What country did you go to D?”

D: “Af-rika!”

BB: “Is that a long way?”

D: “Yes. But my daddy’s airplane went fast! Like this….whoooooosh”, pretending his fingers were an airplane and whizzing them through the air.

LB: “Whooooosh,” for effect.

BB: “But my daddy’s airplane went faster than yours,” his hand turning into a blur of motion as he illustrated high speed.

D: “No, it didn’t! My daddy’s airplane went super-fast!”

Followed by a detailed explanation from BB of the games he played on the in-flight entertainment system.

It’s a funny ole’ lifestyle sometimes, but never seems to phase little boys.

With a ‘need for speed’ already ingrained, heaven help us when they’re 16!

Wishing all my American mom friends a very happy Mother’s Day next weekend!

Pilot thinks planet is oncoming plane

If you’re afraid of flying, click away now!

Air Canada's mid-air drama over the Atlantic: Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Venus!

Still reading? Well, you know that mid-flight feeling – you’ve been in the air for a number of hours, passengers are resting, catching a movie or reading quietly. The cabin lights are dimmed. Every now and then, a flight attendant brushes past.

Imagine, then, that there’s suddenly the most terrible turbulence. The plane is in a steep dive. Your worst nightmare actually happening – terror unfolding as the aircraft judders towards the ocean.

Passengers not wearing seatbelts – many of them asleep – are slammed into the ceiling and overhead bins. Laptops go flying.

When the plane levels out 46 seconds later, the passengers and flight attendants who bounced off the walls are left nursing injuries. You can hardly believe your luck that you’re still alive. Little do you know that a US military plane has just passed underneath – too close for comfort.

No, I haven’t been watching too many episodes of Air Crash Investigation, a programme that has me gripped a little too often. This is based on news reports of an incident that took place over the Atlantic Ocean on an overnight Air Canada flight from Toronto to Zurich on January 14 last year.

At first, it was blamed on ‘severe turbulence’, but what actually happened has just been released.

It seems a sleepy pilot, who’d just woken up from a 75-minute nap, mistook the planet Venus for an oncoming plane and forced his jet into a steep descent – nearly causing a collision with the real plane flying 1,000 feet lower.

The first officer, who was permitted to nap on transatlantic flights, had been awakened by a report that the US Air Force cargo plane was approaching at a lower altitude. Confused and disorientated, he saw Venus and thought it was the other jet heading straight towards them – hence the terrifying dive.

In the co-pilot’s defence, Venus was surprisingly bright that night – a groggy pilot could easily have mistaken it for another plane, say astronomers. Not only does the planet ‘not twinkle’, it looks like a steady, white spot of light in the sky – more like a lantern than a star, and very similar to the headlight on an airplane.

Every time my DH goes to work, I always tell him, ‘Don’t land in water’ – not that I think he ever will (I never worry about him flying – I honestly think the drive to the airport on a 12-lane highway is more dangerous, and, besides, my fears tend to focus on more subliminal things like a crashed tanker sending our compound up in smoke). But by calling out these words, it’s a sort of knock-on-wood precaution, I guess.

Next time, though, I might be tempted to add, ‘And don’t forget darling, Venus doesn’t twinkle (and nor will she come into the cockpit to serve you coffee!).’ Don’t you think it would help if I had my very own Swarovski diamond to illustrate the difference, eh, DH? After all, they practically grow on trees in Dubai!

The joys of child-free travel

As a preface to this post, I very rarely get to do this. Honestly! If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I nearly always travel on stand-by with two over-excited small boys in tow – in economy and in a bad mood.

This time was different – so different, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven …

So there I was upstairs on the double-decker A380, seated rather conveniently right next door to the on-board pub, with free-flowing booze, cocktails and delicious canapés just a step away.

With 14 hours of back-to-back, uninterrupted ‘me time’ ahead, I literally couldn’t believe my good fortune. I’d been on stand-by, hoping to accompany DH on his trip down under, and got the last seat in business class.

As any mum reading this will attest to, the chance to do nothing but watch chick-flicks, listen to music and leaf through magazines – while drinking wine – for a whole day under the twinkly stars of a superjumbo’s ceiling is a ‘pinch-me-now’ dream come true.

Fine dining in the sky: The after-dinner cheese platter

‘Should I watch a movie now or later?’, ‘Recline the seat into a bed and have a nap?’, ‘Or go to the bar?’ ‘Read a novel or Good Housekeeping?’ When these are the only decisions you have to make – and the seat can even give you a massage – stress vanishes faster than you can say ‘white wine please!’

There’s even wi-fi up there – as if the 1,200 channels on the TV aren’t enough – and each seat has its own mini-bar. With so much to do, 14 hours isn’t long enough. I must have been the only person on that plane who didn’t want to get off when we finally touched down 12,000 kilometres later.

The only slight blip on the horizon was that, years ago, I used to be really scared of flying and, despite being married to a pilot, I’m still terrified of turbulence. If DH is next to me, I’ll grip his hand and ask anxiously if everything is ok or if we should get into the emergency brace position. This flight, he was working part of the way (they have two crews on board for such a long flight) and resting in the crew rest area when he wasn’t on duty.

Every now and then, he’d pop up to see me, wearing his sweater as a disguise.

We were high up over the Indian Ocean and I was just reaching a novel state of zen-like calm when he appeared and, hiding a cheeky grin on his face, whispered to me in hushed tones, ‘There’s a serious malfunction.’

‘I wanted you to hear about it first,’ he said sagely, the twinkle in his eyes not noticeable due to the dimmed cabin lights.

You know when you’re sure someone’s joking, but there’s that moment of terror when your heart seems to skip a beat – well *that* was that moment.

Nice one, DH! He made up for it the rest of the time though – and I quickly rediscovered my mile-high nirvana, such are the joys of child-free travel.

Saturday evening in Sydney and down by the Opera House it's buzzing