So after the usual coffee and paper reading I checked the weather. Tomorrow was not going to be great. I phoned mother and asked if she was available late afternoon, I got a bit of a diatribe about her having to pick her glasses up, but apart from that fine. I phoned Ben and he called me back forty minutes later, we were booked in for five fifteen. Went to the Mall with Jamie, looked at the new iPhone 6 SE, yep, thats for me. Came back, printed out a log and then went and picked mother up. I gave her a flight briefing in the car and we arrived at Staverton at five. Signed all the paperwork, walked her out to the aircraft. Surprisingly she managed to get into it without too many problems. I faffed about and did everything I needed to do. After engine start she started pissing about with her camera moaning that it wasn’t working. I would have thought that if you had an event coming up and you were unfamiliar with it, you would have perhaps tested it first? When I spoke to her in the morning I asked if she had charged it, she said it only used the battery for the flash. I rest my case. I took off, she looked somewhat panicked and was trying to grab hold of anything she could. By the time we were at about eight hundred feet she was fine. We had a hell of a head wind, so the journey down to the Severn bridge took ages. We got up to over three thousand feet and crossed it. Went up Filton airfield then got a view of her house and then over Stoke Gifford and a view of mine. Back up the M5 to Gloucester, that was lightening quick with a tailwind. Landed no problem. It was a great flight and all went according to plan.

Okay. There are not many people who can say, “I’ve flown my mother, over her house, in a helicopter.” So there’s one for the bucket list. All I have to do now is swim with dolphins, bang Dillon Samuels and lick chocolate off Adam Rickitts ab’s, then I can quite happily exit life with the ‘fulfilled’ tick-box, well and truly ticked.

To be honest, considering it was only my second flight with a passenger, I was as relaxed as hell, and that really helped. I knew what I was doing, was confident in it and more importantly I had faith in myself.

A good day. But thankfully, not a good day to die.