I am a 42-year-old German-American (brought up in both countries) currently living in Spain with my British boyfriend and very confused son.

I have a Private Pilots Licence although I do find it a bit difficult to fly enough to keep it up-to-date. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with flying, spiced with a healthy dose of fear.

My somewhat sadistic English boyfriend set me a challenge: fly to every possible island in the British Isles. I identified 38 islands with usable runways within the geographical British Isles, from Jersey off the coast of France to the icy Faroes, located halfway between Iceland and Norway. Ireland and the Aran Islands lie to the West and the Scottish Shetlands are my unexpected Eastern boundary.

We spent one summer on this goal and over the course of three months we managed to fit in five islands – at which point we realised just how huge a project this was.

Highlights that I still hope to fly to include Lundy in the Bristol Channel (population 7); Mainland, an intriguingly named island in the Scottish Orkneys; Barra in the Outer Hebrides with a runway only available at low tide and Walney Island in English Cumbria, which appears to have no redeeming value whatsoever.

This blog is updated every Friday (usually!) and tends to vaguely stay on topic about flying and travelling with a bias towards the UK.