Out And About With Hilda and Stan Wuthering Heights Today’s the big day! Hilda takes to the skies. We are off to our favorite beach Silver Sands for the long awaited launch (been put of every week so far by Hilda). Stan says she is scared. She’s going Para gliding!!! Stan is very apprehensive about this venture; Hilda gets nose bleeds on an escalator. Well there is no turning back now, the boys are waiting down at the beach, Stan’s made sure of that bit, and he even slipped them a bit extra to give Hilda an extra long turn. Ali takes Hilda down to the water and shows her the special harness for her to try, its new the latest safety model, Stan mutters under his breath “you mean extra large” It just fits the boys carefully explain the safety procedure and show Hilda where to hold on and not to touch the clips. Hilda nods to say she understands and suddenly its time to go. The boat is ready. Hilda stands still as if in a trance. “Don’t worry” Stan tells the confused staff “that’s normal!! I get the same reaction when I ask her for a couple of bob for the pub” He shoves her forward and Hilda wades out into the clear waters. Getting into the boat is actually not quite as straight-forward as she thought it would be, but she manages rather well. From Stan’s vantage point and she reminds him of one of those walruses heaving itself onto a beach!! Clunk! She’s fastened in, the point of no return. Whoosh the boat takes off and she’s away. Stan now grinning like a Cheshire Cat slopes of to the bar. Peace at last he thinks, little does he know its to be short lived as high up in the stratosphere you can hear Hilda wailing like a banshee. Stan looks up from his beer to see hoards of people pointing and looking skyward, following there gaze he looks up to see Hilda gliding of in the direction of Samos with the boat in hot pursuit. Houston, we have a problem!!! She seems to be floating nicely in the breeze and is not showing any sign of an imminent landing. Hope she’s back in time to cook dinner he thinks. It’s going to be a while now so I might as well have another Efes. Meanwhile somewhere above the bay Hilda is just beginning to enjoy the experience of flying through the air and is desperately trying to remember which clip she was told not to touch. It can’t be this one she thought and pressed it. Suddenly everything seemed to change, firstly she started to go slower, which was rather pleasant and she couldn’t see the boat anymore (then again she didn’t have her reading glasses on). She thought she could hear shouting but obviously it wasn’t anything to do with her, so she just enjoyed the view, as she headed toward the Milipark Not been blessed with a good memory Hilda tried to remember what the boys had said about landing and dimly remembered something about being wound back onto the boat by some kind of pulley thing. Looking down she couldn’t work out how they would do that when she wasn’t actually attached to the boat. Never mind she thought I expect it will work itself out. The wind was dropping and the coastline of the Milipark seemed to be coming up rather fast, or was it that she was coming down? As she approached the beach she saw a crowd of men in green uniforms, waving at her, how friendly, she thought, they are obviously waiting for me. As she got closer even without the benefit of her reading glasses she realized that they were actually soldiers and weren’t waving but brandishing guns. Terrified Hilda landed in an undignified heap at their feet and tried to explain, in her not very good Turkish what had happened. Fortunately they saw the funny side and as in any crises gave her tea and sympathy till the speed boat arrived and took her back to Silver Sands. By now Stan has lost count of how many Efes he has drunk. He is just starting to think that he will have to stay out for dinner when he hears the voice that can sink a thousand ships. “STANLEY” Oops I’m in for it now he thinks frantically pushing the empties across the table, “Yes dear” he sheepishly replies “Did you have a nice time? You were away a long time, you certainly got your monies-worth” Then he sees the look on her face and realizes all is not well. “Sit down dear” he tells her and orders her a large drink (and one for himself of course) “Well dear how was it? I could hear you but not see you!!) Hilda gulps down the drink and tells Stan of ordeal, concentrating on how frightened she was and failing to mention the handsome soldiers and all their mobile numbers she had written on the back of her hand! He sympathizes and starts to wonder what he can find for her to do next, after she has made dinner of course, after all it’s been a long day and he’s rather peckish!