Pockers

I love herring. In fact I like pretty much all fish(es). And let me tell you, this is no platonic love. No meeting of two minds on a spiritual level. This is passion pure and simple: they're irresistible: I eat them up.

This habit of eating fish at any and all occasions was probably triggered by the taste of raw maatjes herrings in the Netherlands. In the UK it's harder to find decent fish - at least affordable that is - so I have to rely on that in cans.

And that proverbial feeling of being packed in like a sardine (the herring's junior cousin) was pretty much what I felt as I sat in the cockpit of a glider on the grass runway at Pocklington preparing for takeoff.

So there I was. Checking the instruments, thinking about what it was going to be like. I'd seen the take-offs from the ground, and they were spectacular. Trundle down the runway then WOOOSH into the air. The flight plan of a glider on take-off can be best compared to a lift (on drugs) (with a rocket up its bum) (and late for a bus).

And it happened. Maximum G-Force. If there were a camera in the cockpit, it would have probably shown my face being distorted as in the 50s Sci-fi B-Movies. No Spaniel with it head stuck out the rear-side window of a Mondeo on the M1 could have looked more windswept.

Though of course, there wasn't any wind: the glider having a superbly smooth body and canopy. As soon as the tow-line had dropped - with a worryingly loud clunk - it was practically soundless. I looked around and down at the fields and houses below, expecting to be vertiginous, but no probs. My freshly microwaved black bean stew (a traditional Pocklington recipe I was assured), was not going to make a dash for it. Being tight, it wasn't the thought of being sick that worried me but the thought of the money wasted.

Casually looking around, wishing that I had brought my camera, I was just beginning to mellow-out, when Stacey (the back-seat-pilot) said: Now it's your turn. I'm handing over control to you.

WHAT! WOA! When were the lessons??? Did I miss a day at flying school? Didn't she realise that this was my first flight? Did my natural RAF good looks fool her into thinking that I was some super flying ace just pretending to be stupid?

But she meant it.

Why not - I thought - let's go for it. So I tried pointing the nose a little down with a ¼ inch movement on the joystick ... Aaaargh!

I love nature and the countryside, but there was too much of it in front of me and coming to fast towards the cockpit. As in relationships, so in aviation: it's best to avoid rushing headlong into something until you have been introduced and had time to get to know each other.

So I pull back to point the nose up. Suddenly everything goes blue. To me naïve person this is reassuring. To Stacey, sensible person this is a good indication that we're going to stall - (and plunge out of control to an early death: something best avoided - unless there's nothing good on telly or its wet out or you live in Milton Keynes). She takes back control.

Ach! My image as a dashing fighter ace is gone. Never mind. I get to live to make myself look a fool on other, future occasions.

The final approach convinces me that there are too many Japanese games shows on TV. Is Stacey a sadist who likes to terrify poor novices by swooping nose first to the ground then pulling up at the last minute? Hey, that's a point: why is it called a final approach? Is there something that they didn't tell me?

Luckily my brain works too slowly to become terrified in the few seconds that it took to land. I guess that terror is stored up inside me somewhere waiting to burst out at 4am in a sweat-soaked nightmare. Mmmmm, nice thought. Anyway ...

Two more flights convince me that I'm not Biggles. I doubt if I'm even Chistopher Biggins in aviation terms. This son of the soil probably needs to stay tied to his mother earth. Nice experience though.

So the guys come over, peel the canopy back and I extract myself from the sardine tin dimensioned cockpit. I don't know how a sardine feels like when its removed from its tin-home, but I felt a certain relief - and a certain regret too.

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