Slowly, without my noticing at first, we were descending, to stay under a slight but constantly lowering cloud base.Into my drifting thoughts came a voice from the headset. “Can we run through the ditching procedure again?” Tim’s voice was steady. “We’re down to 800ft and I can’t see a break in the cloud base ahead.” Rain was beginning to spatter on to my visor. With no parachute to deal with, all I had to remember was that I was attached to the microlight via my headset cable as well as my seat belt and both would have to come off in a hurry if we hit the sea.I settled into the expected 90- minute crossing. As this, too, slipped away behind us, I ran through in my mind once more the emergency drill for ditching. Completely exposed to the elements, and with nothing much to do, I looked down to the tip of my boot and contemplated the distance between this and the patchwork landscape passing far below Soon a sliver of golden coastline appeared on the horizon. Tim had decided against using the shortest Channel crossing – via Dover and Cap Gris- Nez – because it actually made the whole journey much longer.

Instead we would trust the aircraft and its systems on a much longer Channel crossing.The weather on the coast was completely clear and, after taking off from Lashenden, we climbed to more than 4,000 feet to give us plenty of decision time if things were to go wrong. We had landed at Lashenden near Headcorn in Kent, where the owner- operator lent me his old Rover to go and get more fuel – microlights did not, until recently, use Avgas but had to work on two-stroke ordinary engine fuel.We had filed our flight plan between England and France. We swung over the village of Little Chalfont in a great arc, our slow goodbye, and headed south.Five hours later and we were about to cross the English Channel just to the east of Hastings, heading for Dieppe direct – 75 miles across open water. We skimmed the fence and the horses in the paddock, over the farm, out and up over the Buckinghamshire countryside.With a GPS (Global Positioning System) on board, locked on to way points ahead, the lowering cloud base was not – yet – a worry. In every nook and cranny of our Pegasus Quantum 582 microlight were vital odds and ends for our flight.

I heard Tim say “Up, up, now” under his breath and then, always a miracle, she hopped up and lumbered rather than shot skyward.
The place? Buckinghamshire The destination? Portugal, 2,000 miles to the south. The means? Our very own private flying machine, capable of landing or taking off on any cow field or suburban street.We were well up on weight – close to, if not over the limit. I heard him muttering out loud: “Controls, harness and helmet secure,” (I said yes into my intercom, saw him nod), “instruments, fuel, wind, all clear on the runway, power.”

We surged forward, bouncing down the top corner of the field. I asked him where this doctor worked and he told me that he wasn’t sure but that he thought it might be somewhere in the upper reaches of the Yangtse River He’ll be looking into it, I believe.. I sat behind, with my legs wrapped around Tim, my pilot and boyfriend.

Either side were two full spare fuel cans, strapped on to the pod, just below where my arms rested Tim was running through the power checks I heard the tiny single engine roar from behind. He claims to know a doctor who can perform a small operation on his brain that will rid him of this defect once and for all. They are then required to recite by heart the names of every village in China with a population of more than 500.My friend could never raise the cash, though. His latest obsession is that he was born with a gene defect which means that he sees all human beings as equally important, hence his desire to spend equal amounts of time proportionately in every part of the world.