My First Flying Lessons

Little did I know that the first challenge was to get in the plane, let alone make the thing fly. I’m not the smallest of people, an under active thyroid and a year sitting around feeling sorry for myself doesn’t do much for the waist line – or hips for that matter. (I have never understood why some people when they get sick loose tonnes of weight and have to fight hard to put it back on. While I put on weight when I’m ill and it never seems to come off)

I know it sound silly, but just the fact that I could master getting in and out of the plane was in itself a huge confidence booster. Even if, getting out wasn’t quite as elegant as Princess Diana getting out of her limousine! The next lesson allowed me to overcome two more challenges, phew the seatbelt went round me, and I was actually able to fly the aeroplane.

It was a crisp, clear, sunny day and my teacher taught me how to ‘cloud bust’. Did you know that if you get your wing tip into a little patch of cloud – it disappears? I have no idea why, but flying about the sky aiming for unsuspecting clouds to destroy was thrilling, it’s the best-kept secret in the world, no wonder people take it up as a hobby, its pure pleasure.

By the end of the lesson I was exhausted and my arms hurt from using all the controls, but I had done it! The experience was even more exciting because I decided not to tell my family what I was doing. I didn’t want to put them through an more worry. (In retrospect it wasn’t the wisest decision), but at the time, having a secret was intoxicating. Driving along in the car with my husband, looking up at that blue sky and saying to myself – I’ve been up there - made me feel like a naughty schoolgirl. I’d never had a secret before, it was fun.

Those first few lessons literally turned my life around. I began yet another attempt to loose weight, and joined the gym to see if I could strengthen my arm muscles, but best of all, it gave me a sense of optimism, that I could pull myself out of the quicksand and begin living again.