Being the eternally well organised one, my wife had arranged in advance that we would have seats at the front of the cabin with the baby table that folds down so that you can strap your baby in to a moses basket- type thing. However on arrival at the airport we were informed by the check in assistant that she was really sorry but they had given our seat to another couple by mistake and that there was nothing that they could do about it. This, of course, had my hormonal post pregnancy wife in tears. After a heated debate with the assistant, she agreed that she would give us three seats instead of two, and this calmed my wives tears for a while.

After boarding the plane for our 10 hour flight we discovered that it had fixed arm rests and so having three seats was not that much of a help as we couldn’t lie our son down anyway. This again had my wife sobbing, so with an “it will be alright” and a “don’t worry, I’ll take care of the baby” or similar consolation, we settled in for the duration of the flight.

Shortly after take-off it was time for my son to have a feed and, as I had said I would take care of him, this fell to me. The feed went well, but during the process of burping him, I don’t know if it was the turbulence or he was just out of sorts, but he projectile vomited the entire contents of his stomach into my lap. This then pooled into the seat of the chair and by the time I had handed him over to my wife and got up, I was thoroughly soaked through with the stuff front and back.

I cleaned the chair up as best I could, and then took my son through to the bathroom to clean the pair of us up. I stripped my son’s all-in-one off and discovered much to my annoyance that he had a little present for me in his nappy. Great…but this was an airplane toilet and, apart from the toilet seat and a small 6 inch shelf, there were, as far as I could see, no surfaces. So in my infinite wisdom I took off my t-shirt to use as a mat on the toilet seat while I changed him.

So he is stripped and cleaned and as I turn to put his nappy in the bin, I feel a warm wet sensation on my leg. Bloody hell…he has just peed all over me ……and my t-shirt.

As I came back from the bathroom I could see my wife looking at me with a worried expression. However, as I relayed my story to her, she was in fits of giggles (at least this was better than the tears). In between laughter she informed me that there was a foldaway baby table above the toilet that I had obviously completely missed.

I now had another 9 hours of the flight to go in damp smelly clothes. However that extra seat did come in useful after all!!!!

As you would expect, by the time we arrived at our destination I absolutely reeked and couldn’t wait to get to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes.

Tony From Cambridge