Taste of EIA (or The Magic of Flying)

How many of us remember when flying was special and magical? The days when you dressed up in your best clothes, packed carefully, counted down the days to that flight, arrived that airport four hours in advance, were all excited to go through security, bounced all over duty-free, and then... joy of joys, walked into the plane, fiddled with all the buttons, thought long and hard about what to eat and drink and how to sleep well. Perhaps, if you were lucky, the captain would let you come on deck and show you the controls too.

See, I didn't grow up with aeroplanes and airports. For me, it was rickety buses and rattly trains all the way. While they had their own magic, flying was still out of reach for the ordinary people, so you can imagine my excitement when, at age twenty, I was offered the chance to head to Thailand and South-East Asia on a plane. On. A. Plane. For the first time. Oh, the squeals of excitement!

The first time I flew, I asked if I could head in to the pilot's cabin. And I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to do so. The pilots were amazing, as we flew over the brightly lit cities in India, they pointed them out to me. The stars were huge in the sky, as they told me which ones were planets and all the constellations. It was certainly a magical first flight, a truly memorable one.

Ever since then I have flown many times, across continents and oceans, as flying has become more and more common. But through this all, a small kernel of excitement has always remained, and I certainly wish that more people felt the same, instead of just seeing flying as being just another way to get from one place to another, with a few sides of grumpiness and annoyance and frustration.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way now, does it?

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Kids and Restaurants - A Love/ Hate Relationship?

I love my four year old child. I love eating out at fancy restaurants. As it turns out, recently, I have found that one is not compatible with the other. Its one of the reasons I decided to write this post. This post is not an attempt at sneak reviews of restaurants. I may link to a few, but only if our experience was positive. I am not out to be a vengeful parent here, rather I am trying to understand this wave of kid-unfriendliness that seems to be sweeping about.

Adz at Scog's in West Kirby

Before my daughter was born, my husband and I were like any other middle income professionals in England. We ate out a fair amount. It was mostly in pubs, and local eateries, and on special ocasions, we splashed out on fairly expensive restaurants and dinners. We ate lunch at restaurants, almost every day of the week, thanks to an abundance of lovely and low priced places close to our work. We loved the ease of heading out at short notice, and finding new places to eat. I wouldn't call us foodies in a broad sense that its used today, but we knew what we liked, and we enjoyed the experience.

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