Learning to fly

So here I am in Paris. Bonjour!

We arrived yesterday, after a mercifully brief flight from Manchester airport. Good lord, but I hate flying. I was relatively blasé about it as a youngster but something about getting older - awareness of own mortality, exposure to 24 hours a day news which is invariably crap and creates a permanent, swirling void of anxiety deep in the soul - has done for me. I find myself borrowing my mother's technique of keeping my eyes trained on the face of the stewardesses or, if none are within sight, the obviously more seasoned travellers, to check if they are reacting to the variations in engine sound. But then, I think everyone is trained to act cool on aeroplanes, to studiously yawn over the newspaper wearing a faintly bored expression, regardless of any inner turmoil they may or may not be experiencing.

But we made it, we are here, and the gluttony has already commenced. Also, the cultural experiences. But mainly the gluttony.