So much for my last ever flight

Location Easyjet plane | Mood Cruising | Date 16 February 2007
Filed in:
Author (full name): 
Franny Armstrong
Location: 
Easyjet plane
Mood: 
Cruising
Soundtrack: 
Low pitch French chatting all around.
Ailments: 
Sore biceps from lugging gear
Date: 
16 February 2007
Current crisis: 
Should have put a radio mic on the flying teacher today
Current silver lining: 
Post-Crude snowboard adventures lined up

Jeh with mockup planes at Airbus in ToulouseJeh with mockup planes at Airbus in Toulouse

Photograph: Patrick Igonet

 

So much for my last ever flight. Jeh has popped over to Toulouse to order some new designs for his next batch of planes at the Airbus centre, so we met him there to film him flying the simulator (classic), wandering around inside the giant mock-ups of various planes and being schmoozied.

With no Lizzie, I had to drum up an assistant to lug gear, record sound and not chatter all day. Oh yes, and also to take photographs, as the photographer we'd hired to take promo shots of Jeh in India had singularly failed to come up with the goods. Tried to persuade D the E to join me - and he was tempted for a minute - but then he remembered there was a good reason he'd moved out of the production maelstrom into the cosy world of editing.

Lizzie then remembered, on email, that a recent volunteer, Camille, has a boyfriend, Patrick, who's a filmmaker and photographer. By great good fortune he wasn't helping Mario Testino take photos of Madonna today, so he showed up at my house in a taxi at 4.30am and off we went. The non-chattering thing was cast aside as soon as I found out he used to be a snowboard pro.

I tried to persuade the Airbus boys that they should take Jeh for posh lunch in their Michelin starred restaurant by themselves and Patrick and I would nip to the canteen next door, but they weren't having any of it. Unbelievably, the French interior designer who'd been working on Jeh's planes turned out to be veggie too - the first French veggie I've ever met - which took the heat off me. Though I still had to do my "I was going to be a farmer... " story, which Jeh loved and has been calling me Farmer Franny ever since.