The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (41 page)

Polly came out and gave us some homemade lemon juice and chocolate brownies then took me into the cellar and showed me all the food they had grown and stored. There were jars and jars of all
sorts of vegetables, more vegetables than I’d seen in all the time I’d been in America. I asked if I could take a pot for Suzanne as a gift, seeing as the gold panning hadn’t
worked out. They said I could, so I took a jar of garden peas for her.

I think the Amish community are doing it right, to be honest. I was only with the family for a short amount of time, but I think their way of life suits me. They’re living an uncluttered
life, unlike us. We fill our homes with things that entertain us for five minutes and then shove them in a cupboard and replace them with new stuff. The Amish haven’t fallen into that trap.
It’s only really the beard thing that wouldn’t work for me because when you’re bald big beards look a bit daft. But apparently the beard is a sign that you’re married, and
seeing as me and Suzanne aren’t married I wouldn’t have to grow one, anyway. Thinking about it, Suzanne wouldn’t look good in a bonnet. Her head’s too big to carry it off,
but I’d see her less, as she’d constantly be in the kitchen, so the bonnet thing wouldn’t be that much of a problem.

Stephen sent a text.

I went to meet a man called Greg at an aircraft hangar. Before I’d even introduced myself to him, I couldn’t help but notice all the small aircraft in the building, most of which
looked so old they wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the Amish village. Greg took me over to one and asked if I wanted to go flying. I explained that I wasn’t a fan of flying. Even
though I’ve done a lot of it for the TV show it’s not something I enjoy very much – it just doesn’t seem natural to me. The plane he wanted to take me up in had an open
cockpit, which I hadn’t experienced before. But that wasn’t all.

‘Well, you’re not going to get to ride in the seat that much,’ explained Greg. ‘You’re going to ride up on the top of the wing. That’d be your best view.

What’s the point of that? Airlines don’t offer standing as an option for a reason. It ain’t safe. British Airways never say, ‘Sorry, all seats are
booked, but we have some standing space on the roof if you’re interested.’ This is just more proof that the human race has gone daft.

Greg the pilot said he’d been doing this for twenty years, but I didn’t want to hear that. It worries me more when people have been doing things for years because it often means
they’ve become complacent. If he’s so good, why hasn’t he got a job as a proper pilot yet? Or, even worse, was he a proper pilot but was laid off for sending an air hostess out
for a walk, mid-flight?

It’s ridiculous. For days I’d been saying how much I’d love a walk after all the driving I’d been doing. Since leaving the beach in LA I hadn’t really seen any
pavements to even walk on. America is a place designed for cars, not walkers. In fact, they are so anti-walking that you can actually get arrested for jaywalking. Where’s the logic in that?
You can be thrown in jail for crossing the road at the wrong time, but it’s okay to have a walk along an aeroplane wing!

I told the director I wanted to do the other thing, but he told me I should do this, as I really wouldn’t like the alternative. I said I’d be the judge of that, but he explained it
would add more driving time to the trip if we got to the other thing and then I decided I didn’t want to do it, and then we had to drive all the way back to the airfield, which he said
we’d end up doing, as I wouldn’t want to do the other thing. So I agreed to do it.

Greg talked me through it. He explained the toughest part is climbing up to the wing once we had taken off as – and I’ll quote him directly here – ‘it wouldn’t be
safe to be stood up on the wing during take off’. Thanks, Greg.

I practised my route from the cockpit to the wing a few times while on the ground. It wasn’t easy as there were cables everywhere, and I also had to watch where I put my feet, as there
were weak spots on the wing where I could easily go through the hollow fibreglass. And then we took off.

Once we were airborne, Greg wobbled the plane from left to right, which was the signal for me to climb up to the wing. As soon as I popped my head out of the cockpit, the wind hit me. It was
difficult to breathe. It reminded me of being a kid and sticking my head out of the sun roof on my dad’s car. I’d thought through my plan on the way up. I wanted to climb up and keep
really calm and not even flinch, so Ricky and Stephen would get absolutely no enjoyment out of watching me doing it. So, I took my time and climbed up into position and was so focused on grabbing
the right bars I wasn’t even thinking about how high up I was.

Once I was up there, and steady, there was a moment when I thought, ‘I’m loving this, brilliant view, peace and quiet.’ I could actually see the curve of the world I was that
high up. All was good until Greg headed for the heavens. Direct. I remember hearing the engine working extra hard. We must have been doing 150 miles per hour. At this point, I had my eyes shut
tight, but I could tell I was upside down, as the blood rushed to my head. The last time I had that feeling was when I was round at Uri Geller’s house (the spoon bender) who hung me upside
down in a door frame, as he said it would help grow my hair back. It didn’t work. If that’s what made hair grow all men would have really hairy bollocks.

Back on the bi-plane I was screaming like a dying walrus, and my tongue was flapping about like a dog sticking its head out of a car window. I’m not sure if Greg could hear me though
because he took me for some more barrel rolls and dives and steep climbs into the sky. In fact, it was pretty hard communicating with him at all. He’d told me to give a signal of thumbs-down
if I wanted to land, but seeing as I didn’t know which way up I was, that wasn’t easy. I tried a thumbs-down, but he took me for another loop-the-loop. I tried again, and finally Greg
wobbled the plane from side to side as a signal I could get back in the cockpit.

Once we’d landed I had to lie down for twenty minutes. Then I went mental at Jamie the director. ‘I could have had a bloody heart attack up there!’ It was at that moment that
Jamie decided to tell me that the person who invented wing-walking died while doing it. It’s not really an invention, is it? It’s not the Breville machine or a food blender or
E=mc
²
. But Jamie didn’t really understand why I was so angry because we’d ended up doing the stunt only a few miles from the airfield. He was keen to hear about it
though.

‘What was going through your mind when you were up there?’ he asked.

‘My arse,’ I said.

I tell you what, if you ever get on a plane and you hear, ‘This is Greg, your pilot speaking’, get off.