We are going to have a short encounter this evening because once again I am so tired I can hardly see.
I am not alone with this difficulty.
I am in Blackpool in the relative luxury of the Big Blue Hotel, relative to anywhere else in Blackpool, that is, not relative to anything actually luxurious.
What it lacks in subtly artistic finishing touches it more than makes up for in brilliant family-friendly ideas. The children are in bunk beds next to the door with an enormous set of magnetic Snakes And Ladders on the wall, and a built in PlayStation. Oliver is being very quiet indeed, especially now that the Snakes And Ladders riot has been quashed.
It is half past seven and I am in bed. Mark is in the shower and the children are waiting sleepily for their turn. We had dinner at half past five and couldn’t finish it because we were all falling asleep. Mark left an apologetic tip and we staggered back up the stairs to bed.
We have been flying.
We have been joyously, ecstatically airborne.
I went with Oliver and Mark went with Lucy. We flew from Blackpool airport.
The weather came as our Christmas present from the Weather Gods, freezing and crisp and still and brilliantly sunny.
There is something brilliantly practical and workmanlike about an aircraft hangar, one of the planes in it seemed to have been repaired with duct tape and a plastic bag. It is nothing like a real airport, which is there to be an enchanted gateway to another world. An aircraft hangar is where the gateway is maintained and oiled and serviced and cared for.
Our pilot was friendly and cheery and informative, and we knew respectfully that he was a citizen of the other world, and we were mere earth-crawlers, being briefly admitted to the other realm, caterpillars who might or might not become butterflies.
He put rock music on the headphones and talked Oliver through the taxi down the runway.
I am terrified of flying.
I sat in the back and decided that there was no need at all to be afraid. I want to be a citizen of the other realm as well and I won’t get there if I am sitting in the back with my eyes glued shut.
Oliver tilted the plane’s nose up and we took off.
Oliver thought that it was cool.
I could see the sea and Blackpool Tower. I could see for miles.
The aeroplane bounced and lurched a bit, but mostly it was steady, and Oliver pointed her North and we flew over the expanse of Morecambe Bay up to the Lakes.
We flew up Windermere. We flew over the top of our house and looked down at it in the utmost excitement. The pilot explained that this what people always want to do when they first go out in an aeroplane, and he was exactly right. We saw Elspeth’s house, and the farm, and the taxi rank and the Library Gardens and Harry’s house, and then Oliver turned us around to fly back south.
After a while the pilot said that he thought we could make it more exciting if we did some terrifying things, so we did some steeply banked turns and a spiral dive, and flew up very steeply and down very steeply. He was right about this being exciting and it was a good job that I hadn’t had any dinner.
We landed with an earthly thud, having come back down to earth with a bump, etc. This sentence was suddenly meaningful after the freedom and three dimensional soaring adventure of flight.
Earth is bumpy and dull.
We reassembled outside the hangar, speechless with the experience.
After some brief thought we realised that it was too early for dinner and so made our book-purchasing holiday visit to Waterstones before trailing exhaustedly back to the hotel.
We had dinner and we are all in bed now. Mark is looking on eBay at broken aeroplanes.
It is now half past eight.
It has been utterly glorious, and I feel like Mr. Toad.
Poop poop.
