From the Wide Blue Yonder

So... I’m sitting on an aeroplane to Canada. That’s my job today. That’s all I’ve got to do. I even wrote today’s blog yesterday, so that I could concentrate on having a nice easy day, and on giving every one else a nice easy day to boot.

I don’t think I’ve done too badly so far, although I do feel a little sorry for Mandy, and very grateful to her, too. Mandy is Jim Swallow’s wonderful woman. I sat next to her in the airport while the husband bibbled about looking at cameras and whatnot. She talked to me, and kept me company, and put up with my nonsense. She was calm and lovely, and she helped me pass half an hour or so in remarkable sanity, considering where I was and what I was about to do... You know... Get on a plane!

Yesterday I made a simple enough statement. I said this about me and flying:

I can’t be the one to cause the hitch, the glitch or the snafu. The poor husband has quite enough to deal with, thank you very much, without me going off-piste in a bloody airport, or worse still, on an actual aeroplane.

I meant it, of course, but I really, REALLY shouldn’t have said it... Talk about tempting fate!

My doctor - and no, actually this isn’t me going off-piste - My doctor is a lovely, patient, funny man, who has been dealing with me for twenty years. We get on, Stevie and I. (Albeit he has no idea - whoops, had no idea - that I call him Stevie, because, obviously, I call him ‘sir’ to his face). Anyway, he’s lovely to me, so lovely, in fact, that he prescribes me a mild tranquiliser so that I am able to face the two great fears of my life (Actually, I have three, but you can’t swim under the influence of a tranquiliser, because that would really be asking for trouble). That’s right, I am allowed a mild tranquiliser when I fly, my lovely doctor prescribes it for me, and he prescribes it again when I have to go to the dentist, because, although my dentist is almost as wonderful as my doctor is, sitting in her chair really isn’t my favourite thing in the World to do.

Anywho, back to me and flying, and hitches, glitches and snafus, and back to the poor husband and all the madness that he has to deal with simply because he was daft enough to fall in love with me thirty years ago.

Fish or chicken? Not  a difficult choice, right? There was rice and a soft roll and a creamy, spinach sauce, and it was all savoury and pleasant, for reheated, tray food. Dessert was a cookie. You’d expect it to be the cookie, but I didn’t get that far. Actually, that’s not quite true, because I did eat the cookie; it was described on the packaging as soft, and the damage was already done, so I thought, what the heck?

It was my own fault really.

The flight was Air Canada, and the flight attendants, a splendid crew of affable men and women, who couldn’t have been more accommodating if they’d tried, were universally gorgeous in the smile department; so much so, in fact, that I commented to the husband that I thought it might be a good idea to get my next lot of dental work in Canada.

You see... I’m clearly an idiot.

It was the bread. It was soft and white, and generously slathered in butter. There wasn’t a crusty bit of anything on it anywhere. I have no idea how it broke my tooth, but it did... It broke a massive molar... Massively!

The damage is profound! 

What can I tell you?

The poor husband. The poor, poor husband.

I don’t know why I’m not running up and down the aisle of the aeroplane waving my arms and screaming, but you’ll be happy to hear that I’m not.

Actually, I do know... That’ll be the tranquiliser.

I will, as it turns out, be getting some Canadian dental treatment, after all. I should have been more careful what I wished for, but them’s the breaks... Literally in this instance.

Wish me luck, and I do hope the results are as good as they look on all the Canadian people around me today, although, since the bloody thing’s right at the back, I don’t suppose I’ll be showing it off all that much. Oh well.

The only question remains is, did I have the foresight to pack extra tranquilisers just in case.

The answer?

What do you think?