“I’d say it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower”

I’m in north Wales relaxing before commencing a 600 mile cycle ride to Paris from blackpool. Just testing out all my social media outlets before the big day.email I’m in north Wales relaxing before commencing a 600 mile cycle ride to Paris from blackpool. Just testing out all my social media outlets before the big day. …

If your answer is yes, then read on. I have exciting news for you.

For a long time I was like you, trying to lose weight while all the time wanting to eat a biscuit or twenty.

For the past month I’ve been measuring my calorific intake and my weight. I’ve been told I should use about 2200 cals per day, so I’ve been consuming about 1500. And I carefully note down what I eat. It’s a scientific approach and it worked briefly. However, I’ve been gaining weight. So I was in the process of reducing calories and increasing activity to counter these things. It’s fiddly and a bit of a chore to write it all down.

But I have found the answer! A system that allows you to eat any of the high fat high calories you like or even high calorie healthy food, and you will still lose weight.

So you want to know eh? You want to know my secret. Well all you need to do is sign up for a newsletter and buy a full course of videos for 100$ per month. And the secret will be revealed. In part eight of the video series.

Oh what am I saying, I’ll just tell you. Because I like you so much and everything. And we’re best friends and I think you deserve to know. But keep it to yourself ok?

So what I’m about to tell you will probably quite literally blow your mind, so wear a full motorcycle helmet while you read the following to prevent mess. You don’t want to have to wipe a lot of mind off your screen/hand held internet enabled phone device.

Ok are you ready. So this is what I ate yesterday:

• One calorific laden smoothie with oats, milk, raspberries, yogurt and honey (It was the best smoothie to date) (about 450 cals worth)
• Espresso with large spoonful of sugar
• 1/2 a cliff bar
• 1 cadburys biscuit boost (a biscuit boost! Who the hell eats them?)
• 1 Cheese and Tomato toastie on brown (Cheese! Full fat cheese! Toasted!)
• Several pints of sugary drinks (sugary enough to make you gag slightly as you drink it in)
• 1 Large chicken kebab with mango chutney and chilli sauce (On a soft, pillow like naan bread the size of an actual pillow). From Sarjan’s in Fallowfield. The best kebab in the world
• 1 cadbury flake
• 6 chunks cadbury chocolate

I haven’t added up the calories for this, but it is I *think* more than 1500.

And I lost… yes that’s lost ladies and gentlemen… I lost 3 whole pounds (in weight I hasten to add, not in coinage).

And you want to know my secret don’t you?

OK. I rode 80 miles from Manchester to Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Over the Staffordshire moorlands and endless relentless hills.

So there’s the secret ladies and gentlemen. Simply exercise in an almost non-stop way for about 7-8 hours and you too can eat all of the foods you like. And still lose weight.

If you have any further information you would like on my weight loss plan, please add your weight loss questions in the comment areas below.

I’ll add more articles and information here as I find them.

This was a great find from the99percent.com. Have a read. In fact that whole website is full of massively useful information.

http://the99percent.com/tips/6585/10-laws-of-productivity

You might think that creatives as diverse as Internet entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, industrial design firm Studio 7.5, and bestselling Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami would have little in common. In fact, the tenets that guide how they – and exceptionally productive creatives across the board – make ideas happen are incredibly similar.

We stayed in Wern Cottage in the village of Capelulo. In itself, this was a fabulous little holiday. It’s a lovely cottage, beautiful decor and well equipped. We didn’t spot that it was 5 star when we booked it, but it really was like a cross between a hotel and a holiday cottage. Thoroughly, one hundred percent recommended. We arrived after twelve due to work commitments, which meant a short sleep before bike ride. I set out all of my bikey things ready for the morning.

I left the house at about 6.40 and went to wait for Joby at the Fairy Glenn pub. I’d put on many many layers of clothing, a few too many. It was very cold though. And dark. And completely quiet. And a bit spooky. I stood under the pub sign, which creaked as it swung in the wind. For a moment I imagined I was in the intro of a horror film and decided to move around a bit to keep warm and pretend that I wasn’t scared. I thought about Joby coming over the Sychnant Pass and hoped he had some decent lights.

Soon I saw a tiny light in the distance. Turns out it wasn’t a willow the whisp, or a mad axe murderer (on a bike) it was Joby. He was cold and mentioned something about that being the most frightening experience of his life. And later, in the cold light of day on examining the pass, I think he was probably right. Worse still, he could have just ridden on the sustrans. The website said it was closed between Llandudno and Penmaenmawr, but it was only closed between Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan.

This is the view up the Pass

Thr route that Joby took in the pitch dark.

The route was quite steep initially, and dark. And also cold. I have a constantly running nose and eyes in these conditions. I wonder if this is a universal experience or is it just me and my beginners nose. I was wearing specs as I generally suffer with running eyes.

I managed to make us go massively off course and down to the exact spot where the route was closed between Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan. Which meant a nice climb back up a very steep hill.

In general the road is much smoother and better cared for than anything around here. It’s a lovely route through farmland with stunning views of sea on one side and mountains on the other. When it’s light of course. The majority of the roads are very light on traffic, which was wonderful. It was also quite tough with the inclines. One hill in particular was steep and I threatened to stop and stand with the bike, but I refused to. On the icier, nearer sea points the road was very slippy and I provided some comedy moments as I slipped and fell off. I said something along the lines of “I’m going”. As I couldn’t find purchase on anything. But I wasn’t travelling at speed and I had so many layers on I almost bounced back up.

A couple of things I noted were that I probably ate and drank too much before leaving the house. I had two cups of coffee and two welsh cakes. Not huge amounts, but enough to make it less enjoyable to cycle. I’ll remember that for next time. Very very small amounts and eat as you go I think.

Another thing was that I wore my cycle trousers under my waterproof trousers. I was very warm but felt restricted and uncomfortable. I need maybe just padded boxer shorts and some thin thermals leggings instead.

The day before I bought some new gloves and some seal skin socks from High Peak Cycles. Both items were brilliant. I wore the seal skins with thermal inners and my feet were toasty warm. Not warm and boil in the bag effect. Nice and toasty warm. The gloves were so much better than the endura ones I bought before. The fastener on those has broken, they are not breathable and make gear changing difficult and uncomfortable. Plus the lining comes out when you take them off. These ones are made by Chiba and they do the job brilliantly. Warm, comfortable, easy to move while wearing them too.

A further and final thing to note was the need to drop some weight for the hill climbing. Joby climbs with ease. I know he rides a bike more than I do, but in general I do a lot of exercise. I will never be any good up the hills until I drop more weight. One reason I need to do more bike riding is I forget this fact. So, onwards and upwards with the training and I better lay off the chocolate.

We were out for about two to two and a half hours and I think I did about twenty miles. According to Joby we were very close to Anglesey.

I’m going back to the same place at the end of the month, so maybe I’ll make a journey to Anglesey. Maybe it will be light at seven am too, which will be a bonus.

In the afternoon I walked to Conwy over the hills and from a distance I saw the route that Joby took. Yes. Very scary.

Included in the shots below are images taken from the morning bike ride, one of the iron age settlement on the way to Conwy and a few on the beach the following day. See me run on the beach? That’s how fast I am

A good thing about swimming is the lack of equipment required. Of course, when I start doing open swimming, I will need a wetsuit and they are super expensive. But that will come later. For now, nothing more is required.

I pretended I was in a miniature biathlon and ran to the pool. It is only about ten minutes away. And when I say “run” I probably don’t mean it in the same sense as your regular athlete. I am to running what the EDL is to race relations, public order and intelligent informed debate.

Glossop swimming pool is housed in a beautiful building, so much nicer than other leisure centres I have tried swimming in. It was built during the victorian era presumably to provide exercise and entertainment for the local millworking population. It has a slight feel of a church about it. Vaulted ceilings, huge windows and ornate metalwork on the balconies. The brickwork isn’t painted, which gives it a warm slightly serene and relaxing air. A further bonus is that it is very clean and well maintained. The water isn’t freezing or too hot. In sum, a pleasant environment to swim in.

Perhaps it was this that made everyone swimming in the pool do so at the pace of a leisurely amble in the park. I went for the lane swim and the ladies only swim that followed it. Lane swim wasn’t bad (although there were no lanes). Ladies swim was massively frustrating. I am generally a modest person and (I like to believe) tend to be lacking bullshit regarding my own abilities. However, I am a good swimmer. I used to swim competitively as a youth and while I was never going to swim at national or even regional level, I do have better technique than most people.

So we’ve established, by me telling you, that I’m a good swimmer. It’s my best sport. The result is that despite being overweight I can go quite fast. Comparatively. Which means that in the pool I was mostly either behind or in front a pool width wall of women swimmers so I couldn’t manage a proper uninterrupted swim. I observed that most women were there with a friend and swam and chatted, stopping for a quick chat, then a bit more swim-chat. Swim-chat means you can’t put your head under the water. Which means you go very, very slowly. It was like experiencing the horror of having to shop in tescos on a saturday and probably for the swim chatters, the same level of exercise. I shouldn’t have a go, because it’s better to exercise than not, but come on! Try at least to break a sweat ladies. I believe that they say you should try to do exercise that renders you “out of breath” three times a week. If you can swim-chat, that’s not really exercise. Maybe it is more of a social thing.

Anyway, that was my experience of swimming. I think I’ll have to go to the early morning sessions if I want a proper swim. I imagine people who want swim-exercise rather than swim-chat go to those sessions.

I tried out my new goggles and mp3 player. And here are the results:

Goggles

Aqua Sphere Vista Goggles

These were absolutely brilliant. They do not let any water in, you can see everything clearly and they do not give you a headache by having to seal so tightly that they cut your circulation off. I recommend them. I think they probably look a bit over the top in the pool, and people probably think you look like an idiot. I ride a bike though, so I’m used to that.

Waterproof MP3

Speedo Aqua Beat Waterproof MP3 Player

I wanted one of these for ages. Swimming is, it has to be said, really dull. I imagine open swimming isn’t. But pool swimming… yawn! I’ve always wanted to listen to music while swimming. And a few years ago I saw a waterproof MP3 player. They were much more expensive then. This one seemed pretty reasonable, so despite quite a few bad reviews, I gave it a go.

The results:

Of course I failed to read that the software is pc only, which actually wouldn’t be too bad as I run windows in virtualisation mode on my mac. BUT they put the software on the mini-cd thing. So I couldn’t load into the laptop which doesn’t have a nasty drawer thing. Anyway… it turns out you can just drag and drop songs onto the drive when it appears on your desktop. Means you can’t order them or create playlists. But then there is no user interface on the player either, so it doesn’t really matter. It is a sub-optimal system for sure, but it is better than nothing.

While Swimming:

Good points:

• It works! You can listen to music while negotiating a wall of swim-chatters.
• The unit is fixed in place on the back of your head with your goggle straps. You could attach with swimsuit straps too, if you’re a lady. It stayed there without any problem at all. I read in reviews that it comes unfastened, but not for me.

Negative points:

• The earphones are really useless. Maybe I have massive earholes, but I couldn’t get the things to stay in. Especially while doing front crawl. My sister informs me that you have to buy the £40 headset in order to make the whole thing work. Which makes it more expensive than I was expecting.

Conclusion:
Was the MP3 player worth it? I believe it would be if the headset would stay in. It does make swimming laps less tedious, which would be even less tedious if there were proper lanes to swim in.

I’m a little bit on edge about taking the bike out in winter weather. I realise that I treat my bike like a spoiled child. I’m afraid of it sustaining injury by water and or dirt. I’m sure it’s built to deal with fairly harsh conditions, and the frame is fashioned from finest American aluminium rather than sugar, but I guess I’m now suffering for shelling out tons on a bike and being all precious about it. Ideally I’d have a winter bike that I could take on trails and then leave on its own outside shops without being worried that it would be stolen and abused by a less appreciative, less attentive parent. I’d keep the Felt for road and semi-decent weather only. This would take place in a parallel universe where I had a spare £400 every month to spend on anything I fancied beyond my current fairly lavish lifestyle (which already includes about £100 per month on bike-related kit).

But I digress… The weather was cold and breezy but for once no rain. It was time to take out and test my new saddle, the overshoes and the winter gloves.

Firstly, the saddle.

New Saddle

My new saddle is a Selle Italia Lady Gel Flow which I purchased online from Evans. All of the products purchased arrived the day after ordering as I paid an extra sum of five english pounds to ensure speedy delivery. This was because I had planned to join Joby and Chris on their crazy cycle up the Isle of Skye and wanted the overshoes for that event. In the end however, I checked the weather that morning, which presented itself as a howling gale plus extra large lashings of heavy rain. I checked my bed, which was warm, completely dry and presented no threat of being sent under the wheels of an artic via treacherous weather fronts. Which was my choice? I chose the bed. Yes, I am a lazy wuss. So, no real need to pay extra to get the fast delivery.

You’ll notice it’s black, not white as it should be with the overall look and feel of the bike. No white ones available. I might prefer the look of the black saddle. With the white saddle it does kind of give the impression that there should be some tassles hanging out of the handlebars and some streamers on a flag at the back. The saddle is constructed out of leather. Mmmmmm leather. Which apparently helps with something. Like most people of sound mind, I prefer natural materials, so leather is good. There is plenty of gel padding to support the lady-buttock cheeks, or so I am led to believe from the saddle description. I also read many rave reviews, along the lines of “best cycle for ladies” “able to finally do long distances” etc., and these reviews swayed my decision. You’ll notice the text “Ldy” on the cycle nose informing you of the girly nature of the saddle. This is unnecessary and looks a bit tacky. The font is a bit unimaginative. I like the nose of the saddle, seemed as though there would be less chance of catching my cycle shorts, which it turned out was correct. There is also a strange shiny patch at the back. I have no idea why that is there. The saddle is also lighter than the original, maybe something to do with the manganese rails.

So, what was it like? Well, I kind of expected the saddle to be like sitting on a fluffy cloud that had been kissed and petted gradually into shape by a team of cycle fairies and finished off and tested by God him/herself. This wasn’t the case. At first it felt like there was pressure on the sit bones, the technical term for which I believe is the “twitter” (that which is neither x nor y). This was the exact opposite of the effect I was looking for, so initially a little unimpressed. However, after ten minutes or so it was fine. No pain. I need a much longer ride to test out exactly how comfortable the saddle is over longer periods, but the quickie gave me the impression that I had found “the” saddle. I certainly hope so as I don’t want to fork out for another.

And now, the gloves:

Altura Womens Shield Waterproof Gloves Graphite

These possess all of the standard traits of a decent bike glove. Generous padding for the ulnar nerve and funny toweling bit on the back for mopping hard working bike brow. Well padded in general. I can’t attest to their waterproof nature as it wasn’t raining. They were however, very warm. Too warm in fact. Too warm for just now. The extra padding makes them less responsive and not as easy to manipulate as the standard long-fingered water-absorbent bike gloves that I already have, so I think I’ll keep using those until I need waterproofing.

The Overshoes:

Endura Road Overshoes

Here they are with my extra attractive nora-batty style warm winter cycle trousers courtesy of Aldi. Without any doubt, these are the most ridiculous looking item of bike nonsense I have thus far purchased. I think this is because my cycle shoes are a little chunkier than the standard carbon SPD shoe. This gives them a very chunky, club footed, giant welly appearance, when compared to the photograph provided by the web site. Fortunately I am beyond worrying about what sort of freak I look like on a bike, so I don’t really mind. It was too warm for these, I was wearing smart wool socks and with the overshoes it was just too hot. Clearly these are going to be great when the weather closes in further.

Finally, and the icing on the top of my freaky look cake is my buff. I’ve had a buff for ages, and after I whinged about cold ears a few weeks back, Lost suggested a Buff. It’s a great solution. Ideally placed inside the helmet, I posed for my webcam looking particularly stupid here:

Me in my Buff

Here I am looking like a complete retard. I also picked up my old cycle helmet recently from the parentals. It’s a Trek and thus better than the supposed MTB one I purchased from Decathalon. The peak of the Decathalon improves its overall appearance. I tested the two to try to find the lesser of the two “make me look like more of a retard” evils. The Decathalon one looks better, but the Trek helmet has a thicker construction, so I might just wear it from now on. I’d rather look like a tool than have a crushed skull.

So, what’s next on the purchasing agenda? Well, ideally I’d like a winter bike, a Garmin Edge 705 and a pair of those Crud mud guards for a road bike. However, I’ve spent so much on bike stuff recently that I can only just afford to buy groceries, so all that will have to wait.

I’ve been reading both :59 Seconds and Quirkology by Richard Wiseman. :59 seconds in particular is excellent, especially if you are fond of self-help manuals. It debunks lots of traditional self help advice.

The area I wanted to mention was Motivation. For me and some of my newly found web-based, bike-loving and fat-fighting friends, we are in this to get fit again by losing weight. :59 Seconds has a chapter on Motivation. I realised that the advice given in this chapter was just what another man who was overweight and Joby have been doing in their individual successful fight to lose weight.

This is from page 94 of 59: seconds:

“To achieve your aims and ambitions, there are four key techniques that will help you succeed: having the right kind of plan; telling your friends and family; focusing on the benefits; and rewarding yourself each step of the way.”

There are several pages before this that fill in the details, which you should read, if you find that you would like to hone your motivation skills.

It struck me that the key techniques have been used by my chubby bikey friends. I personally reward myself with more cycling gear. The plan comes from the goals that people such as Joby have stated on their blogs, their blogs then inform friends and family of intentions and they talk in each blog post about the benefits of getting fit or losing weight ie. the benefits of their endeavors. Like me, they seem to reward themselves with bike related treats. It’s a winning combination and they along with many others such as Crimmy have been successful in this approach.

Many people are very open in their journey to thin. I’m not sure if it’s my generation or the fact that I generally don’t like to talk about personal stuff, but I find it difficult to write about them in blog post format. Clearly I should, if I want to find motivation. Another reason is that unfortunately/fortunately being a lardass is considered shameful. I say fortunately as in one of his podcasts Ricky Gervais invited people to chase him down the street screaming “You fat bastard”. In many ways we could all do with someone to do this to us, as we should probably feel bad about being fat, it’s not a good state to be in. Being overweight is held in an extremely negative light, maybe that’s good, but I guess that is perhaps one reason I’d sooner not discuss the issue.

Anyway, if you possibly hadn’t noticed, I am about five stone overweight. I wasn’t always so overweight, I have been fit and I have been thinner. It’s unfortunate that I let it get to this stage, but at least I’m doing something about it. So far I’ve lost a stone since I started exercising and cutting back the calories. I feel so much better, I love riding my bike (I can’t emphasize that enough), clothes are starting to fit and I am starting to feel much more positive about life in general.

I’ll set some goals as others have and hopefully this will help me reach them.

So, thanks to Richard Wiseman, to that man who used to be overweight and to Joby and to others who have used blogs to narrate their journeys to fitness.

The internet is a great thing, something I was acutely aware during this weekend’s walk in Hyde Park for the Mouth cancer foundation. I’ll post later to explain more.

The Wilder Kaiser Mountains

If you like to go places to sit by the pool getting skin cancer while drinking sangria and listening to a shrieking hen party from Grimsby shredding “Angels” at a nearby karaoke shack, then this is not the holiday destination for you. It’s much livelier in the winter when it is hugely busy as it is a massive ski resort, but in the summer Ellmau is stunningly beautiful, fairly quiet and offers a variety of activities if you are fond of hiking, climbing or mountain biking.

It is a pleasant family holiday too, but the weather is not Costa Del Sol, so you can’t be guaranteed el scorchio. There are plenty of activities in the rain for kids, and when it’s sunny you can take them to the Kaiserbad, a water slide/swimming pool/playground/ kids paradise. There’s also other excellent swimming pools, outdoor swimming areas and alternative activities if you can get them into hiking. It’s quiet in the evenings and devoid of Elvis impersonators or karaoke bars. I better add that the winter sees Ellmau quite differently and it becomes a bit of a apres ski party town, although it remains family focused (how the exotic dance bar fits into this picture I’m not sure, but never mind).

Getting to Ellmau

Ellmau is in the Austrian Tirol, close to Salzburg and not too far from Munich. Those are the two airports you are best placed to fly to. If you are getting there by train, travel to Kufstein, Wörgl or Kitzbühl.

We stay at a house in Wimm area of the Town, which is across the road from the town centre and five minutes walk from the Kaiserbad. There are three apartments in the house, each one is exceptionally well appointed and very reasonably priced in both winter and summer, prices being a bit lower in the summer as it is the low season. Contact Maria Haas for further details. She speaks excellent English as do most people in the area, so don’t worry if you don’t speak German.

House in Ellmau

The mountains around there are stunning, and offer a wealth or mountain-based recreation. We stick to walking up mountains and biking.

Wilderkaiser from Hartkaiser

We hired bikes from Intersport Winkler. You can also get bike from Friedl Fuchs (yes that’s with a C)  at the opposite end of the town. Both had the same price at e65. Bikes weren’t bad at all, but next time I want to take my own.

The Bikes that we Rented

There are cable cars along the mountains and a funicular railway on the Hartkaiser that can help you to cheat and get up in the mountains without all of the uphill pedaling. Once you get into the mountains there are some brilliant mountain biking opportunities.

Our major outing took us from Wimm, walking to Sheffau, walking up to Brandstadl, across the “Panorama Weg”, down the Hartkaiser and then back home. It was tough, really steep on the climb up the and then miles to get down. I think we might have overdone it slightly.

the route we took up Brandstadl and back into Ellmau

An event of note on that expedition was being attacked by four pugs who chased and then wheezed at us for a short section of the climb. I think they wanted to stay for the duration but I told them to go home in German, and they dutifully turned around and did as they were told.

The friendly pugs

In terms of cycling Ellmau to Söll is a really nice ride. There’s a section where you go through the forest, but otherwise the road is quite smooth. There isn’t much of note in Söll, but bee enthusiasts can stop off at Bee world and check out the honey and bees. I’ve not been there, but it looks very informative and exciting from the outside .

A very pleasant ride was from Ellmau to the Hintersteiner See (Lake) which is behind Scheffau. It’s an easy ride to Sheffau and then… very, very, very steep. You go through the village (which is steep) and then you can either go through forests or on a nicely surfaced road (again, very steep. I think you’ll recognise a theme developing here). You’ll need a mountain bike for the forest road. Again, it’s nice and steep and it was a hot day. The end reward made it worth it. The lake is gorgeous, crystal clear and surrounded by mountains. It is as Maria says, “Sau Kalt”, which you could translate into English as “sodding freezing” and the swim was incredibly refreshing.

The Hintersteiner See. Lovely.

I wish we had the bikes for longer, but it rained for a few days and they were pretty expensive. As I say, next time I’ll take my own.

Oh and here’s a ride I was proud of. From Wimm up to where the Riesen restaurant once was. It was tough and I nearly passed out at the end. I raced against my husband, who ran. He won! On a road bike this would be a different story. Here’s the route from an mountain opposite, so you can see it is nice and steep.

The route to Riesen

Here’s me enjoying a cold one in Munich. Mmmmmm beer. This was taken a couple of years ago on an earlier visit.

This is me in Munich, which is close to Ellmau, although in a different country.

]]> http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/24/recommending-ellmau/feed/ 2 http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/16/flying-with-ryan-air/ http://www.emmarush.com/2009/08/16/flying-with-ryan-air/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:27:57 +0000 EJ http://www.emmarush.com/?p=142 I started writing an entry about my recent holiday to Austria, but I’ve decided to break it down as it was getting convoluted.

Ellmau is in the Austrian Tirol, close to Salzburg and not too far from Munich. Those are the two airports you are best placed to fly to. This year I was unable to find reasonably priced flights there and there were no direct flights to Salzburg from Manchester at all, so I extended the holiday by flying to Frankfurt. We stayed overnight and then got a train from Frankfurt to Kufstein, which is about twenty minutes from Ellmau by car. While this worked out cheaper, it was only cheaper because we flew with Ryan air to Frankfurt Hahn.

In theory my travel arrangements were great because they saved us about £200 and we got to see some of Germany, thus I thought, an extended vacation. OK, Frankfurt isn’t a the new Prague, but I enjoy looking around cities. And yes, that’s a great idea if you don’t mind flying on what feels like the airplane equivalent of a magic bus in Manchester, sans tramp. In practice, once you land in “Frankfurt” Hahn you have a one hour and forty five minute journey to Frankfurt on a cramped bus that costs 12 euros each way. So don’t forget your 24 euro bus journey tax on the flight, because Hahn isn’t near anything apart from somewhere farmers might need to travel to. Don’t get me wrong, it looks like a nice enough place, although I only really saw it in the dark. The important thing here is it isn’t anywhere near to Frankfurt, so don’t be fooled into thinking it is.

I’ve flown with Ryan air before to Salzburg and Alghero, and it wasn’t so bad. The airports were where they said they were. However, this is definitely the last time I’ll be flying the cut price way. I accept it is cheap and I selected this travel option because it saved me money. And that’s fine. I’d rather pay extra and avoid all of the extra hassle you get with low cost flying. While I’m sure that some people might enjoy all of the additional perks and excitement that come with a so-called £5 flight, I do not. First of all there’s the booking process. What starts of as £5 ends up being about £45. This is because of your take luggage with you tax, your paying for your ticket tax, the get on the plane first to avoid the scrum for seats tax and then the just normal tax that you normally associate with buying a normal air ticket. Don’t forget that you’ll have to pay a further £10 to get to a city that anyone has ever heard of and add a couple of hours onto your journey. So now you are at £60, and that’s just one way. But if you enjoy a challenge, then this way of flying is most definitely for you, most especially if you like to look at German motorways in the dark. Don’t forget that you have to find some way of printing your boarding passes out. And you can’t print them out before 15 days of your flight. Which means that if you are away for more than fifteen days, which we were, then there’s the find someone who’ll print this out for me challenge. Most fun of course is the “Can I take some books with my pants luggage weight guess in” Where you spend several hours carefully selecting your most lightweight clothing and books so that the items don’t weight too much and you don’t have to pay more to get your knickers safely back home.

The airport that we flew to was reminiscent of Glossop indoor market, except without the charm or the ice cream van. The people on the desks looked like they’d just finished the decorating before leaving for work and then forgotten to change. Either that or the cleaning staff were standing in for the usual counter staff. Whatever the reason something had annoyed them because they were mightily pissed off at something. Fortunately my ability to speak English and German meant I didn’t get a massive bollocking for standing in the wrong que, unlike some other Spanish speaking travelers on the flight to Dublin.

The flight was really not that bad at all, if you can ignore the constant encouragement to buy any manner of scratch card or panini from voice overs and any spare wall space. The garish Ryan air colours are there I think to remind you are experiencing bargain basement travel. And this is not such a bad thing as you can ignore it and the flight is fairly short, but it makes the plane feel cheap, which is a feeling I don’t relish at thirty thousand feet, especially sitting next to my airplane hating husband. I’m not a nervous flyer at all, but the whole low-cost flight experience made me feel uneasy.

Next time I am able to convince him indoors of the need to travel out of the UK, we’ll be going by sea/tunnel and train. It’s expensive but bring it on.