A Flying Tin Box, Another Reason We Caravan

“This is why we bought a caravan” grumbles The Boss under his breath. We’ve been in the air little over two hours. Heavy wind and driving rain at Gatwick have given way to bright sunshine and fluffy clouds way beneath us. With two hours of flying time still ahead of us, he’s read every newspaper, magazine and leaflet that he can get his hands on. He’s nearly finished his litre of water and guzzled a can of Diet Coke and a Twix to try and beat the boredom.

He’s squished in a centre seat with no leg room and keeps itch, fitching and farting about as he tries to get comfy. He can’t sleep, as he doses off his head comically rolls. I tease him, “Is your head falling off?” Unappreciative glances at me tell me he isn’t amused. He has no arm room and continues to stuff the pocket in front of my seat with his bits and bobs telling me that I’m lucky to have a seat with extra leg room. I haven’t, but this is one of the rare occasions that having little legs comes in handy.

Children start to get tetchy. Trolley Dollies sweep up and down the aisle in a fog of Eau de Calvin Boss or some other expensive concoction, offering culinary delights wrapped in plastic or duty free items that are apparently too good to miss. People stand to stretch their legs in the aisle just to break the monotony, much to the disappointment of people wanting to pass to go and stand in the queue at either end of the plane.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Says the five year old in him. He sees escape. The woman to his right on the aisle seat stands to join the queue at the back. He’s up. He needs to stretch his legs. The look of relief on his face as his legs extend. An incredibly short time later and she’s back. He slinks back into his seat. A rather big, blooming rose squished between two thorns.

Flying in an EasyJet tin box is less pleasurable than the tin box we’re used to. An official informed us as we queued to board that outside the weather was bad. Very observant for someone who merely had to look through the window or at the bedraggled set of people in front of him. So, they were going to slow our boarding down by only using one set of stairs. We don’t normally have to mix with the Riff-Raff swilling pint after pint with their breakfast, swarming in sheer panic to board a plane that has enough seats for us all then block the aisle at the first three rows while we stand in the pissing down rain on the steps. The most eager couple to be first on the plane used the ‘special requirements’ call as an excuse, not sure what the special requirement was as they barged everyone out of the way and sprinted up the steps, the only thing we noticed was the most horrendously loud gravelled voice, anyway, we get to seats 25A and 25B, guess who’s in seat 25D, “Where’s my headphones?” ‘The Voice’ next insisted her husband had to move to the rear of the plane as he needed to sleep, he was next seen jammed between two people while she lay across 25D, E & F fast asleep with her hands down her pants scratching her ars… bum.

There is a distinct whiff in the plane, he can’t place it, saying something about chemical disposal points. We hope it’s not his freshly laundered jumper, which, for some strange reason had a strange smell this morning, we even sprayed about £150 of free after shave on it passing through the duty free area, perhaps it’s reacting with the ‘Eau de Riff-Raff’.

We land, which triggers the panicking again, seatbelts unclipping as the wheels hit the ground. Why oh why does everyone stand up as the pilot hauls up the handbrake? Faces in armpits, window seats stood with heads jammed against lockers, Facebook addicts checking in, oh, let’s have a landed selfie. Mr Misery stays put, we’ll get off when we can walk off. As much as he’s hating every second of this flight he’s prepared to hate it for two minutes longer than the herd. They will next be seen rushing for the carousel, but we can see Mr Lanzarote baggage man with his feet up taking a rest. Oh, did I mention, he’s made me come away on a two week holiday with just hand luggage. As we exit we see the pilot, he appears to be ten years old, generally we like our pilots to have a few more wrinkles or at least reached puberty, good job we see him at the end of the flight. We are last on the shuttle bus, which ironically means we are now first through the airport, we only smirked a little.

Now we can start to relax and enjoy ourselves, two whole weeks before he endures the flight back, then we start… A New Job and the Caravan Joins Us