Jenny is even more captivated. She was an ardent plane spotter as a kid, and often visited Heathrow, which was close to her parents' house.
When we first met we were always financially stretched, so we didn't actually fly anywhere until 1994, when we went to Venice, Florence and Rome. Before I met Jenny my only flights were in a private plane flown by a friend's mother, and a short family hop from the now defunct Lympne Airfield in Kent to Paris.
Now of course we've flown all over the world and think nothing of it. Unfortunately millions of other people are equally casual flyers and the resulting pollution has made us rethink our flying habits. We may abandon long-haul trips altogether. But short-haul trips are unavoidable to go elsewhere in the UK.
I've never been afraid of flying. Planes are maintained to much higher standards than the average car, and besides, the flight crew don't want to die because of some botched repair job. If the crew are happy, so am I.
I do always wonder, when I'm in a really massive plane trundling down the runway, whether it'll actually take off or end up in the adjoining field, but of course it always does take off.
Our only edge-of-the-seat experience was when our plane from the US was coming in to land at Gatwick in thick fog. The pilot circled several times before deciding it was okay to land, and when the plane touched ground there was a huge round of applause from the passengers.
I could say something about in-flight conditions - and the food - but I'll leave that for another day.
