Thursday 4 September 2014

Those magnificent men in their flying machines!

This holiday just gets better and better as this morning we have a surprise addition to the original Happy Camera itinerary, we're taking to the skies. Well at least that's the plan. However, when we arrive at the tiny air field, our intended four-seater plane seems to be in pieces strewn across the grass. This is somewhat alarming and making me rather disinclined to take to the air strapped into this clearly not happy propeller plane. I was already a little trepidatious about the danger of flying in such a small flimsy looking plane, but it's a new experience and I keep being assured that the pilot wouldn't take off unless he was positive it was completely safe. Hmmm, this is the pilot who is swearing in French and hitting parts of the engine. Yessssss, we're in safe hands!

 
 

The final insult is that our hire car (which we've been very derogatory of already in this trip) is used to jump start the ailing plane. Be still my beating heart! I distract myself by taking photos of the flowers, the scenery and the Spiderman plane still inside the small hanger.

 
 
 

Eventually the plane us making encouraging noises so I'm strapped in the back seat before I can change my mind. Of course the plane needs jump starting a second time, eek! I take a very rare selfie of my anxious expression, wearing the headphones and the wing (thankfully still attached at this point) reflected in my sunglasses. I'm not entirely sure what this would achieve, perhaps I figured it could be retrieved from my camera, should we crash, and be used as my final ever portrait. A cheering thought!

When we finally do propel ourselves into the wide blue yonder, the ride is surprisingly smooth. I had wished we thought about reflections in the windows and persuaded HiM to wear a quieter, maybe black shirt, so every single one of my photos doesn't have plaid in the foreground to try and extricate.
 
 

We make like a vulture and glide on the thermals over the mountains. We fly over Curnier, the village where we're staying. It transpires that our landlady is out in her garden waving at us! My camera cannot pick up that sort of detail though, HiM has borrowed the big-boy lens so perhaps can. Once we're up there, it was worth the drama and we have a soft, entirely trouble-free, landing. Yay, I live to take another selfie should I be so inclined!

 

 

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