Flyin’air: Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com
It’s a national pastime, knocking Ryanair.
Save the world
But credit where credit is due and I’ve reason to thank the low-fares airline for getting me out of a jam this week.
When I again fell foul of the small print.
My gripe is that airlines don’t make out clearly on the forms that a flight is taking off on a particular day but returning the following day.
When you’re faced with booking online which we invariably are now just having a +1 next to the date will invariably catch you out.
Inevitably I got my return connection from London to Dublin wrong and panicked worrying that I would be out of pocket.
My benchmark: The boss
That though is when I steeled myself to fess up to The Scary One who internalised (a little) her anger and pointed me in the direction of the Ryanair Helpline.
Half-expecting that they would just palm me off I was delighted to find.
That they were agreeable to me switching my date to the next day.
Dig in: Michael O’Leary
Which just leaves me with fresh as yet unknown ways to screw it all up now.
I’m happy to repay the favour in the best way I can then.
Particularly as it involves being proactive about emissions.
Ryanair are pointing to their lowest CO2 per passenger/km in the EU airline industry.
How can you not help?
Which they’re happy to say is 23% lower than the average of Europe’s other big four airlines.
And they’ve not just been doing it by themselves. Those little envelopes we fill are working.
Ryanair have now offset a volume of 280,000 tonnes of CO2.
Thanks to the distribution of thousands of fuel-efficient cookstoves over a year.
They have also donated €250,000 to Renature Monchique as part of its Carbon Offset Initiative.
Portugal Cento
Which will pay for the planting of thousands of trees in the Monchique area of the Algarve.
Right, the world’s leaders aren’t going to stay in a caravan park but I do heartily agree with the G7’s choice of Biarritz.
In a former life, and former newspaper, when I had to compete with others (the cheek of it!) to be picked to go on a travel trip, I landed Biarritz.
The newspaper’s system, as far as I could figure it out, was that the first one to reply was rewarded, though I suspect that quality control came into play too.
It went down though like a fart at a funeral among the women in the office that I was being sent to a Thalassotherapy Centre for some water-based spa pampering.
Water everywhere: At the Sofitel
The Hotel Spa Biarritz Le Miramar – Sofitel is where you should go when you’re in town.
And I fancy that The Donald, The Boris, the Emmanuel and The Justin all like a pandering.
I’ve also got a soft spot for The Angela and have been concerned to see her shaking, so she certainly deserves some spoiling.
You too can avail of some treats, and God knows, you deserve it.
Jump in: The Sofitel, Biarritz
I can still feel the seaweed wraps and a shiver goes down my back thinking back on the water hosing I got from the assistant.
The previous time I’d been hosed down was by a life guard in a swimming baths in Glasgow for messing about.
There are some things that will scar your kids… seeing their Dad smoking a Shisha pipe is one.
It’s not as if they put any drugs in it, or at least I think they didn’t, more of a sweet-smelling tobacco. Still impressionable seven-year-old minds and all that.
Bodrum in Turkey was perhaps my favourite of our family holidays, possibly on account of the Turks making a fuss of our Ally (like Ali, they said).
And our Laurie befriending Shannon.
And me taking second place in the talent contest, doing a Highland jig in my kilt.
Click&Go has half-board Turkey holidays among a clutch of great offers.
A seven-night stay at the 4* Ambrosia Hotel from €399pps. Travel in October. With return flights from Dublin to Bodrum. http://www.clickandgo.com.
And if you’re looking for another Turkish treat my Istanbul trip this summer is in today’s Irish Sun.
I do hope the PR woman who was taking her first media group on what was then the inaugural Swansea-Cork Ferries trip was not put off by us all getting sea-sick.
And continued with her career.
It proved a thoroughly enjoyable introduction for another tyro, me, into the world of travel and Press groups.
Not least because it also included the use of Citroen cars for a spin around the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula.
These days, mainly because The Scary One has taken the wheel. I prefer to walk.
And that’s not because she throws me out of the car.
I’m off to Tenerife next month and am also trekking in Austria.
The beautiful Dingle Peninsula
And that means I won’t be able to avail of this intriguing walk in Kerry.
Courtesy of The Rose Hotel in Tralee this is a Walking Weekend organised for September 27 and 28.
Check in on the Friday evening and on Saturday guests will join Wild Water Adventures on a guided walk with a choice of three routes.
The Dingle Way (Easy 2.5 hours), Loch a Duin Valley (Moderate 4.5 hours) or Mount Brandon (Strenuous 6 hours).
The Walking Weekend package costs €160pp.
It includes two nights accommodation with dinner on one evening, guided walk, packed lunch and transport.
To book or for further enquires please contact The Rose Hotel visit www.therosehotel.com.
A little bit of sunny Scotland
Scotland, Barbados: Dwayne and I
I love finding Scotland abroad… in the world’s place names.
Here I am in sunny Scotland (obviously not the original) in Barbados.
Equally I have travelled in other lands where my Scottish forbears have gone before.
The Deep South of the US has a rich Scottish history with Ben Lomond and Banff revealing its Caledonian links.
But you can be deceived. Nevis in the Caribbean has no connection with Britain’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis.
The Caribs first tried out Ouailie (Land Of Beautiful Water) while the early British settlers called the island Dulcina (Sweet Island).
Until they settled on Nevis from the Spanish Nuestra Senora de las Nievas (Our Lady of the Snows).
Does it even snow there though?
Tropical Sky www.tropicalsky.ie has savings of up to €1,200pp on seven-night stays at the 5* Nisbet Plantation Beach Club.
For travel completed before December 19, if booked before August 31.
The holiday now costs from €1,899pp. Includes return flight from Dublin.
Exotic: Thailand. Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com
You wouldn’t immediately associate Thailand with Halloween, it’s just that our holiday providers like to link dates and places.
In fact it isn’t Buddhist and Halloween is a Christian festival, but being Buddhist they do channel the spirits.
And go for miniature spirit houses outside their homes and businesses where they present gifts to their forefathers.
Emirates Holidays www.emiratesholidays.com is offering a ‘fangtastic’ (their words) seven nights at the 4* Santhiya, Koh Yao Yai from €3,729 per family.
That’s two adults, two children (under 11 sharing).
Including return flights from Dublin. Depart October 26.
Me, I’m a practising Boozist!
Malta pleasers
In neighbouring Gozo
It’s getting around to that time of year again when I made the besotted Miss F the happiest woman in the world.
I bent down to tie my shoelaces in Malta and she shrieked YES.
