Long distance lives

It's been two and a half weeks now since my husband and I said goodbye at Heathrow. It's the longest we've ever been apart, and we're not even half-way yet. My leaving date is still up in the air, as it relies on various paperwork being done by the airline, and things move very slowly in the Gulf!

To make things worse, we don't yet have an internet connection in our new apartment, so we're relying on a local mobile and a friend's internet connection for occasional Skype sessions. It doesn't make for easy chatting, but we're managing to speak twice a day on average, so that's what matters, really. My husband's getting to grips with his new type rating, which is being condensed to half the time the manufacturers think it should take - hence he's got practically no days off, and he's exhausted. It's a tall order. Still, when he's back in the air at the controls of his magnificent new aircraft, I know he'll think it was all worth it! That's what this aviation lark is about, after all.

On a completely different topic - last night I went to a friend's birthday party and encountered two breeds of homo sapiens I rarely meet; the man who has only read two books in his lifetime, who was married to another species, the woman who thinks the study of history is a waste of time. Both of them fascinated me, in a banging head against wall sort of way. Both concepts are so alien to me I just didn't know what to say, really. Well, I mean, I tried to defend history with the usual "learning from our mistakes" gubbins, and I of course pointed to Dickens, Shakespeare, Larkin etc as fine examples of literature, but honestly, there was little point. After all, it takes all sorts to make a world (I suppose).

Golly, I'm getting intolerant in my advanced age. First a spelling nazi, and now an academic bore..

Maybe I just miss my husband.

What should we do with the drunken pilot?

This made me laugh this morning. Typical Daily Mail reporting. Some poor Captain suffered a stroke on an Aeroflot flight, and the passengers were convinced he was drunk. Quite understandably, they were slightly panicked...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1135305/Thissh-issh-captain-sshpeaking-Passengers-revolt-drunken-pilot.html

What really made me laugh was this:

Airline officials came on board to calm the situation, with one telling a passenger that even if the pilot was drunk 'it wasn't such a big deal'. He added: 'Really, all he has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself. The worst that could happen is he'll trip over something in the cockpit.'

That is nothing short of hilarious. Bless those little ignorant 'airline officials'!

Modern romance - using Google search!

I'm grinning from ear to ear.

I just logged onto StatCounter, which for those who don't know, is a website which tracks the number of visits a website receives, how they found the site, what posts they read, and for how long, etc. It also has a really cool section where it tells you what search terms have been used recently to find your blog (for example, recently, lots about cheating pilots!)

And there, at the top of the most recent Google searches, was this:

"Wife with Altitude, who I love, and know is reading this".

My lovely husband must have chuckled when he typed that into Google...

P.S And a belated congratulations to one of my best friends, whose pilot boyfriend proposed at the top of the Empire State recently! How incredibly romantic. I'm already planning my outfit...

Narnia

England is covered in a rather magical blanket of snow today. We haven't had this much of the white stuff since I was a little girl. I adore the snow, but I must say it really hasn't been the same without my husband. As CS Lewis would say, I feel rather like I'm in a country that's always winter, but never Christmas...

If my husband was here we'd be out in the snow madly throwing snowballs and building a snowman (or lady) - but as it is, I've spent the day snowed in, looking at the world beyond my house with some sadness. I couldn't get the car out and therefore couldn't make it to work, and being forced to spend the whole day alone has been pretty rubbish.

I've been diligently keeping busy up until now, which has worked very well. I've busied myself seeing friends and doing jobs, and I've had very little time to take in the magnitude of what's going on. Today, though, I've had nothing but my own thoughts (and, I must admit, Mamma Mia on DVD!) for company. You've got to love Mamma Mia. Terrible singing, but relentlessly upbeat. I've needed it today.

Anyhow, I've managed to pack a few boxes, do a bit of ironing, and throw a few things away, so I've made another few small steps towards the big move. But there are so many more steps left to take....

Still, I'm going to try to enjoy what's left of the snow, because Lord knows when I'll see some next!