auntiegwens guide to travel

By the magic and good grace of the bloggy fairy by the time you read this I will be en route to The Beautiful House. So your selfless to the core auntie has got her lazy arse into gear and left you something to read whilst I'm gone, which is more than I've done for The Beautiful Children, I haven't even left them food:)

Please read on to be enlightened on your aunties view of travel.

Accept that you will have to spend hours searching for flights that go remotely near where you want to go and at the most inconvenient time to you if you use a budget airline. Stupid o'clock and feck it's early are the only option of the budget traveller. You may want to go to Portugal but end up in Poland, well, if the flights are only a quid, where's the harm? I'm sure Gdansk has a lovely beach, what?

You will have to be prepared for your fingers to bleed over the keyboard as you input your details over and over again, due to increased security you must now give them every personal detail you have and this includes your grannies postcode, your aunties bra size and your dad's inside leg measurement.

They will always sting you for extras such as fuel surcharge, passenger service charge and UK departure tax. You may well be thinking "But what have I paid for?" A seat and some fresh air, I think would be the answer, no promises to go anywhere though. They think it greedy of you to expect that the price of your ticket would include the fuel to fly the feckin plane, a stewardess with bad shoes and far too much make up to look bored and point here, here and here and to ram you with the duty free drinks trolley and of course it is now acceptable to charge you tax to leave the country. I mean, you hardly pay any tax at all in this country, so quit your whining, would you give yourself peace!

It is also par for the course for the airlines to expect you to print off your own tickets, book yourself in online and then print off your boarding card. I fully expect to turn up one day and be asked to fly the plane, I seem to be doing every other job for them.

It will cost you feck off amounts of money to take a suitcase with you, how demanding are you? For the love of God, what do you need clothes and toiletries on your holiday for? be naked and smelly, unleash your inner native.

Remember that a clear plastic bag will stop your lip gloss being a threat to national security, don't forget to make sure you have one to encase your extremely scary and potentially dangerous Juicy Tube. The safety of our nation depends upon it.

Make a pact with your fellow travellers, you know you're going to fall out when you're travelling, accept this, you can bicker and snipe and be as grumpy as you please whilst en route but once you arrive, all sweetness and light and no casting up.

Always, always check with me as to when I am leaving the country, you will be guaranteed to have blazing sunshine for a week, jolly useful if you plan to holiday in the UK. Book your overseas holiday for the day after I return, for it will be tipping it down for at least a fortnight.

See you in July.