I had been promising to take Mum on a weekend away, involving a plane, for ages. She hasn’t flown since the days when planes were held up by sheer hope and sticky tape (the early 1970s) so we thought it would be good if I showed her the airport ropes so she would be more confident about taking Dad away on a winter sun thing at some point.

Anyway, after many false starts and then a very near abortion at the last minute, we finally set out for Paris very early one Saturday morning…

– written up August 2005