On Lazing and Flying!

Yet another mixed bag weekend, fortunately with no surreal moments.

Saturday was spent being gloriously unproductive. Flyboy and I indulged in my favourite activity for a change, vegging with a good book. We eventually moved from the bedroom to the kitchen when we realised that our hunger pangs were not going to be satisfied with copious amounts of biltong anymore (jerky for those foreign folks). And then we gravitated to the lounge where we lizarded in the sun with a book each. The four-legged inhabitants quite enjoyed that – much competing for the sunniest possie on the carpet.

However such decadence cannot last forever! We had obligations of a social nature – a feeding orgy at The Odd Couple's residence because it was Paw's birthday on Sunday. Surprisingly all went well. You see, Maw has this superstition that bad things happen in our family on or near birthdays. And thus far it has proven pretty accurate. There is usually something like a death and similar stuff on or around birthdays in our family. In recent years, probably because most of my family had died off thanks to all the birthdays, the disasters are usually limited to arguments between Maw and me. One incident which springs to mind occurred a few years ago in December. She decided to read my diary on Christmas day – I had written a somewhat scathing account of her Gestapo-like behaviour, mustering the troops to get the Christmas lunch PERFECT! Needless to say, after she fished my diary out of its hiding place and reading it, a "good" day was had by all.

Maw and I didn't have any arguments on Saturday for a change, it could be because I managed to stifle the nicotine withdrawals and be the perfect, dutiful daughter.

Sunday was as always airfield day. And hey, I got my first instructional flight on something with an engine. It was so cool discovering that everything I learnt years ago is still there, in the tips of my fingers and in my feet. There was one hair-raising moment though.

Flyboy instructed me to turn right leaving behind one range of hilltains (in between a hill and a mountain – a Kattism), fly across the valley to the range of hilltains on the other side. I should have smelt a rat because the turbulence on the opposite side is infamous. And of course, the turbulence dragon was sitting waiting for me bearing its fangs through its sickening grin. Flyboy was of course playing "Look Ma, no hands!" and fiddling with my camera. When I asked him to please back me up on the controls because I was struggling he proceeded to take photos with a big smile on his face. After yelling at him and threatening never to fly with him again (I know, I am such a girl) he took the controls, pulled the plane up into a steep climb. Then he put the nose down and we left our stomachs behind. All this while I was screaming and laughing at the same time. I am involved with a lunatic! We then moved to the centre of the valley, switched off the engine and floated home – glorious!

After the flight I learnt that the instruction to fly into the Turbulence Dragon's jaw had been deliberate to see how I handle it. The overall verdict from Instructor Flyboy was "You flew lekker*." So maybe I will be AeroKatt soon.

After a weekend of lazing and flying it's going to be a week of typing. What a let down!

* For those of you from foreign parts, "lekker" is an Afrikaans word which should technically be applied to food which tastes good, in other words, "The main course was lekker." However, South Africans of all languages apply lekker to everything that is good and positive, in other words, "You smell lekker," or "The holiday was lekker."