Come Fly with Me

On Wednesday morning at 10.30am, we take to the skies. You will probably hear the screams, regardless of where you live in the country!

On the one hand, I am very excited. The flight will take us to Finland where we get to witness Anna's Uncle Matthew and Auntie Ulriikka marry, which will be a wonderfully happy event. It will also be lovely to attend a wedding where myself, James and/or Anna are not playing a key role. Don't get me wrong, it was a privilege to do but a wedding where we are just mere guests sounds lovely, just for a change! I just wish they didn't live so far away which requires air travel! What is the matter with rainy, grey Manchester???

I have no dislike for Finland as a country. I just have a major dislike to flying. I resent having to be trapped in a confined space with less air than normal, defying the laws of gravity and full of strangers. It gets even worse with a 2 year old who I find difficult to keep still at the best of times. 10.30am is not a great time to travel either. Anna will be fully awake with no desire to sleep whatsoever! In fact, I am having worse nightmares about this than I ever did whilst contemplating Anna as Bridesmaid (and that is saying something!)

One of Anna's favourite pastimes this summer has been to lie on the grass with her Daddy lying next to her, gazing up at the sky and spotting the aeroplanes flying overhead (Anna spots them a much greater speed and accuracy than her Daddy could ever dream of!!). Therefore, we began to use this opportunity to explain that she would be going in one of these flying machines soon. Anna looks less than convinced. 'Oh dear, Mummy and Daddy have not had much sleep again!'

I am armed with numerous colouring books, sticker books and story books. In fact, for the past couple of months, every shop that I pass has seen me going in, just to see if there is yet another colouring book I could find which might hold Anna's attention for more than a nano-second. She refuses to sit in the car seat unless Abba is playing before she gets in. To combat this, we have also downloaded every Abba, Lady Gaga and all other cheesy current pop songs onto the Ipod but I am still not holding out much hope.

To make matters worse, after a flight of 3 hours to get to Helsinki, we then have 45 mins to get a connecting flight to Tampere, which includes getting off the plane with a 2 year old, going through passport control and getting to to the other side of the airport apparently. That is not even the part I am most worried about because I am more petrified about the fact that I then have to convince Anna to get on another plane after she has just been made to sit still for 3 hours on one. Why would she want to get on another one. I will desperately try to explain that this one will only be for 25 mins but, being 2 years old, the concept of time is not great.

James is feeling much more positive. He thinks Anna will be fooled into thinking it is a funfair ride. I think it may work for all of 10 minutes before she starts to realise that it is actually a bit boring and asking to get off to go on something more exciting.

There will be one consolation to Anna though,which may just work, and that is the promise that Auntie Ulriikka and Auntie Charlotte are going to be at the final destination. We have already told Anna that she will be seeing them both this week and Anna has talked of nothing else. In Anna's eyes, I am very small in significance compared to Ulriikka and Charlotte. In fact, all other female relatives in either of our families are called either Charlotte or Ulriikka by Anna as they are so heroic! I may have to pin a photo of each of them on each ear muff, in order to drown out the major tantrum from Anna for the entire duration of the flight from hell.

Failing that, I will be leaving the aircraft with a nervous breakdown along with 150 fellow passengers!
Bon Voyage!