This week has been all about diaries, with our UK summer visit in mind. In the frenzy of setting up the mother of all Excel spreadsheets, containing everyone’s school dates, work days, holidays, birthdays, credit account details, shoe size and eye colour, there is an underlying excitement about the upcoming trip, not least for the thought of the hours spent Doing Nothing on that long flight home. Turbulence is yuk, but Nothing is just lovely.

When I was seven we went on an aeroplane for the first time, me and my sister, and so did our Dad. I remember him holding our hands and making us skip with him (yep, skip) from the terminal building all the way across the tarmac until we passed almost underneath the big polished nosecone of the jumbo before skipping up the rickety steps on the side. There are some notable points about this little vignette:

Point A: This was Dad’s first time on a plane, and if I was seven years old that means he was 36, so that’s a whole 36 years before he ever flew (he says they drove everywhere: that’d be Europe, presumably).

Point B: we skipped across the tarmac which means we were on foot, no covered walkway or runway bus, just a happy stroll to this huge 737* and a tippy-toe up the side like a family of happy ants. Bonkers.

Point C: (and you had to be there for this one) I remember him being way, way more excited than me.

The same bloke is now an accomplished air traveller. In the last ten years alone he’s been to Malaysia, Kenya, Egypt, Japan, China and America as well as all around Europe and back again, and of course out here to Singapore three times. He wanders down to the gates unhurried, tackles turbulence with a scientific approach (another beer, please), writes chapters during the flight and steps off at the other end unruffled.

In the 38 years since our maiden trip on the big jet (to America, actually, to live, which is also why we were so excited) I’ve been around the block a few times, too, clocking up the bulk of that during these expat adventures, but no matter how many times I buckle up for take-off I never get over the sheer freakyness of air travel, that amazing technique of propelling bodies through the sky to get from one side of the world to the other. In honour of our imminent summer flight back to the UK, here are my top 10 reasons for why we should never be blasé about flying:

1)    You are flying: f.l.y.i.n.g

2)    You can walk up and down, look, while you’re flying

3)    The meals come in tiny little packs with tiny little puddings and diddy bread rolls, and on the bigger flights they are free, no cash required at all. Sometimes there is wine

4)    Sometimes there are goody bags (for the kids, yes, but even so)

5)    Sometimes there are free headphones, wee small tubes of toothpaste and, on really posh flights, socks

6)    The window blinds go up and down

7)    If you want another blanket, no problem, just ask the nice lady

8)    On the bigger flights there are TV screens showing all the films that you never got round to seeing: for free! On that maiden flight we were both given, my sister and me, a covered shoebox full of ‘Stuff To Keep Us Busy’ so yeah, we knew how to roll, but look at us now: plug me in!

9)    On very big ones there are inside stairs that you can climb, while at the same time actually flying: up and down, up and down. Amazing

10) They thank YOU for flying with THEM: amazing

We never fly posh class so I can’t imagine what that must be like, but I’ve walked through the cabin and I can see there are beds where you can sleep, which is again, yes, amazing, but why would you want to sleep when there’s so much fun to be had?

*Dad left me a note: ‘One detail: there were no jumbos in 1976; it was a Douglas DC8’ See? Totally au fait with the whole thing