My Abiding Forestry
Nov. 6th, 2010 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyLast night I had a call from my mother, who has been on holiday all week. Such is the life of the retiree. She and John have been swanning about in the wilds to look at Wilpena Pound and Lake Eyre in flood. Lake Eyre is in the middle of nowhere but the skies above it are like Heathrow, according to my mother. Planes aplenty.
We had one of those conversations where my mother and I were on the phone and John was nearby adding his two cents. My mother said, 'We took a scenic flight over the lake and I had the seat right next to the pilot.'
In the background, John said, 'Tell her about the pilot.'
'I said I sat next to the pilot.'
'No, who the pilot was.'
I said, 'Who was the pilot?' and my mother sighed.
'He means it was a woman,' she said, just as John called out to the phone, 'It was an aviatrix!' Our conversation stalled while my mother told him they're not called that any more and they're not that uncommon. I got the impression they'd been over this before. They've probably been driving around South Australia debating the prevalence of female pilots and what to call them.
Attention returned to me. 'Tell her about the cat,' said John.
'There was a cat,' said my mother. 'On the plane. It was the airport cat and it likes to stow away and walk around the plane while it's flying.'
'It sat on my knee,' called John.
'But not mine because I was up the front with the pilot.'
'The lady pilot.'
'Because if it sits up the front it likes to pat the GPS device.'
I'm torn between finding that delightful and thinking there is an episode of Air Crash Investigation waiting to happen.
Anyway, they are on the way home now and will stop to have a late dinner with me as they come past, so could I buy some bread and milk for them to take home? It must be nice to have a valet service.
As I was going into the bakery this morning to get their bread, there were two elderly men, twin brothers by the look of them, standing out the front, bickering happily about how to get in. 'The door's over here,' said one, pointing at a window. 'No, the door's round here if you want to get in,' said the other, heading in the correct direction. They made it in eventually and as I left they were beginning to discuss what sort of bread they should get. It sounded like it was going to go on for quite some time.
We had one of those conversations where my mother and I were on the phone and John was nearby adding his two cents. My mother said, 'We took a scenic flight over the lake and I had the seat right next to the pilot.'
In the background, John said, 'Tell her about the pilot.'
'I said I sat next to the pilot.'
'No, who the pilot was.'
I said, 'Who was the pilot?' and my mother sighed.
'He means it was a woman,' she said, just as John called out to the phone, 'It was an aviatrix!' Our conversation stalled while my mother told him they're not called that any more and they're not that uncommon. I got the impression they'd been over this before. They've probably been driving around South Australia debating the prevalence of female pilots and what to call them.
Attention returned to me. 'Tell her about the cat,' said John.
'There was a cat,' said my mother. 'On the plane. It was the airport cat and it likes to stow away and walk around the plane while it's flying.'
'It sat on my knee,' called John.
'But not mine because I was up the front with the pilot.'
'The lady pilot.'
'Because if it sits up the front it likes to pat the GPS device.'
I'm torn between finding that delightful and thinking there is an episode of Air Crash Investigation waiting to happen.
Anyway, they are on the way home now and will stop to have a late dinner with me as they come past, so could I buy some bread and milk for them to take home? It must be nice to have a valet service.
As I was going into the bakery this morning to get their bread, there were two elderly men, twin brothers by the look of them, standing out the front, bickering happily about how to get in. 'The door's over here,' said one, pointing at a window. 'No, the door's round here if you want to get in,' said the other, heading in the correct direction. They made it in eventually and as I left they were beginning to discuss what sort of bread they should get. It sounded like it was going to go on for quite some time.