So ... here's the craic ...

Holiday coming up ... fantastic location ... sun, sea, sand and ...

... helicopter transfer.

Sounds fantastic I hear you say - what's the problem?? Well, to start with, here are the facts:

• Fact number one: I love flying, absolutely adore it, and have done plenty of it.
• Fact number two: I have a morbid fear of heights.

Let me explain 'morbid'. I am the person who went to the first level (and that's the first level up, not the first level down folks!) on the Eiffel Tower and refused to move away from the side of the lift in case I got any closer to the 'edge'.

I am the person who pushed the wrong button on the glass lift in Belfast's new Victoria Centre, ended up in the glass dome (what is that? three, four storeys high?) and couldn't get back down because the choice for getting down was going down in a glass lift or on a glass encased stairwell.

I am the person who went on the London Eye (against my own better judgement) and sat on the bench in the middle of the capsule with my eyes tight shut, fingers so tightly wrapped round the bench they had to be prised off, with tears streaming down my cheeks the whole way round.

I am the person who was put in a chairlift to go down the mountain after a ski lesson and reacted so badly that the unknown 11 year old child in the chair beside me felt it was his duty to personally comfort and reassure me we were going to survive the journey the whole way down the to the village. I was 25 at the time.

Feck's sake, I can't even look at these photographs of the workmen sitting drinking their tea on the metalwork of the skyscrapers they are building without getting the willies.

To those of you who do not share my fear, the two facts above must seem contradictory and to be honest I just cannot explain why I have no problem flying when I can't climb a ladder into my own roof space.

But a plane is a plane, and in it I have no difficulty. A helicopter on the other hand ... well, I'm thinking it's just a smaller version of that capsule on the London Eye.

So while the rest of the family are booked onto the 10 minute helicopter transfer, I am currently booked into the 2 hour 'nightmare' road transfer, until such times as it is seen that I pass the 'can rationally ride in a helicopter (subclause: without causing all those around me to have nervous breakdowns at my expense)' test.

Which is why I am heading across country to an airfield on Sunday for a trial flight .....