THE onset of the season of goodwill and its attendant Christmas advertising on commercial television led me to seek some R&R at my daughter’s family home in the outreaches of rural Hampshire.
The day I started out was in a blast of wicked winter storms.
As I drove to Ronaldsway for the mid-morning Flybe flight to Gatwick the Ben-my-Chree was sitting forlornly at her berth on the Edward Pier.
The forecast was Gale Force 8 rising to 9 and I thought the airline’s intrepid birdmen might be thinking twice about even getting out of bed.
But when I checked in the girl told me that everything was on schedule. She showed no concern about the weather. But she wasn’t the one going out in it.
Flight 273 was called and the passengers formed up at Gate 5 where we could see big white rollers beating the living daylights out of Langness.
We went down to the tarmac. The ground staff told us to be careful out in the wind.
We strode manfully and womanfully towards the aircraft, with a sideways crabbing action and our heads bent. A gust caught my Daily Telegraph and sent it flying in the general direction of South Barrule. Then it caught hold of my in-flight bag.
It was a Mary Poppins Moment.
Looking down on us benignly from his seat on the flight deck was Captain Martin Quayle. He knows me and he waved. Waving back was like waving while drowning.
Everybody climbed aboard with a certain amount of introspection. A baby with its parents in front of my seat was crying. It was the only sound in the cabin. The stewardess doing the safety briefing had a devoted audience.
On the PA system Captain Quayle advised that there would be some rocking around straight after take-off. He was right about that.
The memorable moment was a sudden wing waggle of the kind Spitfire pilots liked to do in the Second World War.
Meanwhile, the baby had stopped crying, having been rocked into a deep sleep.
We flattened out into smooth flight and First Officer Ed Jarman told us we now had a powerful tail wind, sending our airspeed up to 400mph which would get us to Gatwick ahead of schedule.
In these circumstances, I have been assured, pilots throttle back the engines to make full use of the extra free propulsion which reduces fuel consumption which keeps fares down as well as saving the planet.
I looked in on the flight deck as I disembarked. Captain Quayle and Chief Officer Jarman were heads down in paperwork, a less glamorous side of an airline pilot’s life. I asked Martin what sort of wind strength we had charged into at Ronaldsway.
He reckoned about 50 mph or so and he seemed surprised and puzzled by the question.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked.
‘No reason, pal,’ I told him.
I can be as cool as any intrepid birdman when on the ground.
I HAVE been sent a cutting from the Examiner advertising for sale: ‘Heated dog bed, suitable for small to medium size dog or queen and kittens.’
And hot dogs?
JOHN Kermode says he saw for sale, in the window of an estate agent in Ramsey, that fine property, the White House, Kirk Michael – ‘with a fine view across the sea to the Mull of Galway.’