Top of the Yawning

We've just got back from a weekend in Ireland. It's First Holy Communion season there. My niece had to leap over the broom, or whatever the accepted metaphor for communicants is. Actually, the allusion to marriage is not a fanciful one because the little girls dress like brides. It's faintly distressing to see your infant flesh and blood trussed-up like this. The boys, on the other hand, were all dressed like they were expecting to be interviewed for a middle-management role. Why not top hat and tails?

Anyhoo, we ate too much and drank too much for three solid days, which I'm sure is what the Lord Himself would have wanted. I also foolishly engaged my nine-year-old nephew in ten minutes of hurling in the garden. That's not as actionable as it sounds to any non-Irish readers. Hurling is the national game of the Republic. Google it. It's a sort of actual bodily hockey. I'm feeling it today though - too old, you see.


On the flight back we were sat in front of a group of early twenty something girls. They seemed quite relaxed and chatty during boarding, but one of their number turned out to be a nervous flier. I first became aware of this the moment the plane left the ground because she hooted loudly as if she was unaware that this eventuality might come to pass. And it wasn't an American, frat-boy, high-five hoot either. It was one of distressed surprise. Not realising that manned-flight involves leaving the ground is right up there with not knowing the facts of life in this day and age, don't you think? And what did she think was going to happen? That we were going to thunder along the tarmac for the entire trip?

A little while later, we encountered some turbulence, at which she burst into tears. The crew intervened at this point as she and her friends were sitting in an emergency exit row. They tried to spare her befuddled feelings by cock-and-bulling her that she might be more comfortable in the row behind. Don't fret though. I shot her one of my "we can't have someone with bovine reasoning like you between us and safety" looks. She realised the score and looked suitably chastened.

I suppose charitable types would argue that she couldn't help it as fears like this are inherently irrational. All that is true. But then I don't like spiders, so I take great pains to avoid being locked in a metal tube with hundreds of spider-fanciers while Ryanair hand out bags of tarantulas and insist we fondle them for seventy minutes.