i aint gettin on no plane!

Ok, I am but I won't be happy about it. I've got a deep seated terror of flying (in airplanes generally but I reserve the right to be terrified by other modes of in-the-air transport too), I think it's a control thing, in that I feel totally out of control and I am convinced that the steady drone of the engines will just stop any second. Flying for me is always accompanied by crying and a mild panic which I do my best to control so I don't disturb/freak out other passengers, the last couple of times I have also grabbed hold of complete strangers sitting next to me when things got a bit bumpy (luckily they were very nice about it).


Knitting does calm me down a bit and when I went to New York in January I started a pair of Monkeys - I blogged about them here On the the flight to and back from Ibiza I picked them up again - incidentally, the EasyJet flight from Stansted seems to be the flight to take if you want to spot celebrities, on the way out we were joined by Judge Jules and Cerrie from cBeebies (I think I was more excited by Kerrie, I think that means I'm a grown-up now) and on the way back Tinie Tempah + entourage were on the flight, looking very tired having come straight from Space.

   

 Back to the socks, by the time we landed on the way home I was on the toe of the first socks, although these are intended for plane knitting only I'm going to finish the toe, graft it together (no tapestry needles allowed on planes these days) and then put the needles and remaining yarn away until my next flight. I love how they are pooling, it all seems a bit random and I've got a suspicion that this is due to my tension varying as my stress levels go up and down, here's a picture of the bottom of the sock:

   

 I'm knitting these on a bamboo Hiya Hiya 80cm circular needle I bought in New York and I really don't like it, I'm worried it will break and it's too grabby - a few times I've pushed a load of stitches off the needle because they have required more force to move than my usual metal needles do. But I'm not going to try to get metal needles on to a plane so I will soldier on...

 

P.s I know it's more dangerous driving on the motorway than flying - I don't like that either!