Nervous Nellies Can Have Fun

Flying isn’t something anyone loves. When I had my old brain I didn’t hate it but it was such a faff that I always thought that I would travel more if they could invent teleportation. Now that I have my Swiss-cheese brain I suddenly find that flying is terrifying. There are so many elements that are out of your control, which is a problem for the permanently anxious.

The Long Suffering Husband used to be the nervous flyer.He still has all the quirks that help him through, like confirming that I have the tickets and passports a million times but these just seem to make me worse.

The last few days in the build up to this holiday have been challenging. There’s nothing I haven’t worried about. I’ve even put an earthquake/tsunami alert app on my phone. My eyes have developed that sunken, haunted look again. I have read more than my fair share of pop psychology books (during a phase in my life when I was on a bank graduate training scheme and misunderstanding that the books were supposed to make you a better bank worker rather than make you decide you’d rather be happy and do something else with your life) so I knew the answer was, in the words of Susan Jeffers, to feel the fear and do it anyway.

The LSH thought that, even though we are not flying too early in the morning a hotel at the airport might take the stress out of the situation, so we booked one that included a pod transfer to the terminal. Seriously, why do they call it terminal? I don’t need to be thinking about words like that right now. When we arrived he pointed out that it was quite dated and reminded him of a seventies holiday camp. This was fine with me as we weren’t posh enough for holiday camps and so it had to be a step up from a leaky tent. I did think it looked a bit like a prison complex but it seemed to be doing a roaring trade in Arab weddings.

We walked down the never ending corridor to our room, like interlopers in an Escher painting and the LSH said, “It’s like something out of Doctor Who.”
I worried about being chased by the ood and whether it was alright to keep my sonic screwdriver in my handbag for the flight.

The room was small but functional, with a hard bed and no cat. I’m not sure why the LSH was disappointed at the lack of a cat because swinging them is cruel. We decided that if I was going to pace it should be in the corridors, checking for alien life forms, or maybe the bar. We settled on the bar, as the LSH had definitely earned a glasss of red wine.

We sat by the window with a view of the runway. After I’d watched a dozen planes land safely I started to relax a bit. We started to play a game of spot the airline from its tail logo. Most of them were British Airways and were easy to spot from the Union flag. This isn’t an easy game, though. We wished we had one of those spotter books for children but we did have the internet. Some were easy: Aer Lingus with its shamrock, Qantas and the kangaroo or Swiss Air with a white on Red Cross. When you have to look things up you start to realise how many airlines there are. This caused a brief moment of panic as I thought about air congestion and air traffic controllers falling asleep or having sudden heart attacks. I kept it together looking for the logo I had just seen: red blue and yellow with a sideways sun. I found it - Philappines! There were so many birds and suns. I suppose things that are natural to be in the sky feel like they would bring luck for this impossible metal box to stay in the air.
Then I saw the monkey.
“That wasn’t a monkey, you are seeing things,” said the LSH, “ more like a boat with sails.”
I was certain it was a monkey.
We scoured the internet and couldn’t find it anywhere.
“What time did it land?” I asked, thinking I could be first to find it by checking the airport arrival list. Luckily, we were WhatsApping the children by then so we had the exact time when the LSH had told them that I’d lost it. We checked everything but no monkeys were on any of the logos. Eventually, the LSH  thought that it might have been a delayed flight and so looking at the time it should have landed was probably pointless. He found an ‘on the ground’ list and we worked our way through the flights that were on the ground at ten to nine.
“Uzbekistan!” he shouted, getting us a few weird looks form the bar staff.
I looked it up.
“It’s the monkey. You’ve found the monkey!”

“It’s still not a monkey!” The Long Suffering Husband was adamant. My son could see it, my daughter couldn’t. (We WhatsApped them the picture). I know which child I’m keeping, if we ever have to choose! 

We may be nervous Nellies but you can’t say we don’t know how to have fun.