On the way back from the Rose of Tralee last week I nearly caused an incident at Kerry Airport when my carry-on bag was searched by security, who found a knife. I explained to the nice man that it was for spreading peanut butter on rice cakes, but, because of what I believe is called the "current climate", he confiscated it anyway, writes Róisín Ingle.
Knowing how much of a room-service junkie I am, I had planned to live on rice cakes and peanut butter while I reported on the Rose of Tralee International Festival from the Brandon Hotel. Somehow, despite my best efforts, I ended up eating a fair few portions of chips, and my organic rice cakes were left forlorn on the bedside cabinet. In my defence, chips were sometimes the only option during festival week. Still, as my healthy-eating guru pointed out when I got back to Dublin: "You can bet 10 sparkly tiaras those Roses weren't eating chips all week." Sometimes I feel like sacking my healthy-eating guru. I tell you about the mini-incident by way of introducing my occasional fear of flying, which reared its head again on the way back from Co Kerry.
It pains me to admit it, but I've been known to clap when an aeroplane lands. I know this makes me part of a universally derided breed of air passenger, second only to your average airborne terrorist, but I am often just so grateful to be safely back on terra firma. The more turbulence during the flight, the harder I clap. It's not the "ah, great, we're in Las Palmas, happy holidays everyone" kind of clapping. It's the limp-wristed, teeth-gritted "oh sweet Jesus, Mohammed and all the saints" kind of clapping. Relief given voice through applause.
I used to be married to a man who enjoyed turbulence. The aircraft would be careering around like an off-the-rails roller coaster and he'd be sitting there with a huge grin on his face, going "woo hoo, all riiight, that was a good one!" On a particularly knuckle-whitening flight to New York, I remember noting, between imagining how many people would be at my funeral and which songs would be played - definitely If You Want to Sing Out by Cat Stevens, for example, but nothing by Celine Dion - that he seemed happier than he had on the day we got married. Having said that, he did look pretty miserable on our wedding day. I can laugh about it now.
I've a particular routine for when the going gets rough. At the slightest sign of turbulence I grip the armrests as though the very act of holding on will stop the plane from plummeting to the ground. I close my window blind on the principle that if I can't see the wing falling off, then it's not actually happening. I make deep and meaningful eye contact with the stewards. "It's going to be all right, isn't it?" is what I hope my look says. "Nutter, stop pressing the call button," their eyes seem to say in return.
This coping strategy garners sympathetic looks from some passengers, who gamely attempt to explain air pressure to me, and filthy looks from the person who's armrest I am stealing. In turn I cast my own filthies at people who go to the toilet on aircraft, convinced, as I am, that any movement at all will anger the turbulence gods. "For the love of Jehovah, you are putting us all at risk," I silently scream as they toddle off to do their business.
Certain people have tried to explain to me that turbulence is a perfectly natural occurrence. "Turbulence is air movement that normally cannot be seen," said one of my brainier friends recently, sounding as though he had swallowed a fear-of-flying handbook. "It may occur when the sky appears to be clear and can happen unexpectedly. It can be created by any number of different conditions, including atmospheric pressures, jet streams, mountain waves, cold or warm fronts, or thunderstorms."
But when he said that all I heard was blah, blah, pressures, blah, blah, thunderstorms. Knowing why it happens doesn't make it any easier. When it's not bouncing around like a demented Space Hopper, I quite like being in an aircraft. Having a bird's-eye view of puffy, fluffy clouds has to be one of my favourite things.
On the way back from Kerry I was just getting stuck into the latest Kate Atkinson novel when turbulence struck. We were in one of those terrifyingly tiny aircraft from which you can see the propellers, which means you will also have a great view if they suddenly stop, mid-air.
I'd like to thank the man who tried to calm me down while I sweated all over his armrest, rolled my eyes and muttered things like "humanist ceremony" and "cremation, please".
Experts say the older you get, the worse the fear becomes. Fear of flying. Fear of dying. They might be the same thing.