I always thought that I might get married one day. I never dreamed that I would remain married for a whole year. But it's going so well that I can see this lasting for another year. At least. Careful what you don't wish for. It might come true.
The taxi driver taking us back to the airport was good value for money. He asked us which airline we were flying on and we told him it was Ryanair. "You've got no respect for yourself, have you?" he quipped. It was the perfect summation of the experience of flying with this airline. It's not horrific, but it shows a lack of self-love to buy a ticket (as it happened someone else bought our tickets, but economics dictated the decision). There is something undignified about not having an allocated seat, of having to queue for ages in an area without chairs, of rushing to the plane to ensure you get the best place possible. I thought the system actually slowed things up, because of course, at the end you're left with people looking for a place to sit and people having to move around to accommodate them, but the taxi driver explained that the theory was that if people didn't have a seat they would hurry to get on the plane whereas if they knew they had a place allocated they would take their time. That's probably true. But added weight to the lack of self-respect argument.
He told us (and of course I have no way of knowing if this is true) about a situation where he and his friends got on a Ryanair flight that was completely full apart from some reserved seats and once on the plane they were told they would have to pay to sit in those - even though there was nowhere else to sit. And two women were being kept off the plane because they're bags were too heavy and so they were desperately trying to unpack clothes to put them on. The men refused to pay for the seats and eventually the captain of the plane came out of his cockpit, went down the stairs to the tarmac, picked up the ladies' cases and put them in the cabin himself and told everyone to sit in the reserved seats. Whilst the crew were trying to pick up bonuses for charging their passengers, he would be fined if he missed his take-off time.
The driver also told me of a man he knew whose hand luggage did not fit into the designated space, but only by centimetres. so rather than pay the excess he pulled the wheels off his suitcase so it fitted. A somewhat Pyrrhic victory perhaps, but satisfying, if true.
Whatever the facts might be it was interesting to see the resentment that the airline caused to at least one of the countrymen of the owner. And the stories were entertaining.
And the flight back wasn't too bad. We even had the luxury of a spare seat between us (it was like flying in a very shitty business class). Even with some self-respect removed I love flying. I looked down on the fields of England, wondering how many hundreds of years the irregular shaped boundaries and country lanes had stayed in the same places.
We were back in London in time for us to celebrate the exact anniversary of our wedding ceremony. We chose to do this by eating sushi and drinking sake in Itsu. I couldn't think of anyone more appropriate to be celebrating this event with than my wife. Except for Amy Pond or Lily Cole. But I had sent them both letters asking them if they would come out with me (and not my wife) to celebrate my wedding but neither of them even replied, which is rude. Well maybe you should have girls. Cos we went to Itsu which is well posh and I would have paid for everything (up to a four plate maximum, I am not Rockefeller). And tomorrow I am taking my wife to Venice for an anniversary treat/reward for sticking with me for so long. So maybe you should have married me too, huh? Then you'd have all this stuff. Don't cry, you had your chance and your tears mean nothing to me.
You can see what nonsense my wife has to put up with and she copes admirably well and I am greatly honoured that she has stuck with me this long with never a cross word (well never just one). We're still having a great time. Marriage is pimpsy.
