Speedy Edie

965km per hour ground speed. Altitude 11583 metres, which means we’re going faster through the air than 965kms, but I can’t do the maths. I don’t know if it’s because I am too tired, too lazy, or because I simply don’t have all the information I need. I sit thinking about it. I might need to know the radius of the earth. I look over at Edie who is asleep in a basinet seat – wonderful things basinet seats. I know we will miss them on the return journey when she’s too big for them. On the flight to Bangkok Edie sleeps like a twig (a small log). Neither Viv nor myself sleep all that well, on account of being new parents. Shame really, with the early boarding; the loads of legroom; the spare seat. All the luxuries afforded us by the presence of the small one; things you dream to have on any flight, yet that twig scratches at our nerves. We probably think she’s going to explode at any moment.

But it’s not until boarding the second flight to Phuket that that happens. Fair enough too. We’ve waited for about five hours in the airport, and by that time we’ve broken the first rule of parenting three times: never wake a sleeping child. But it’s quick and violent and once she lets everyone on the plane know who has the loudest voice, it’s over, and she’s back to being a twig.