Well we are home from Barcelona and the insurance company can relax there are no claims this time. We have had an excellent time with Alex, Dave and the grandkids and now it’s time to cut down on the alcohol and cut out the three course Menu el Dia lunches and look to losing a few pounds. Surprisingly even with all the beach walking I have done I have still managed to put on an extra pound or three.


The journey home was not the best and because like all pensioners I like a grumble I have slipped into my Victor Meldrew mode in the hope that Barcelona Airport, Jet2.com and Leeds Bradford Airport may come to realise that a customers is someone to please not simply to endure.


It all starts in Barcelona naturally with the usual expected delay on the flight which raises a couple of issues, if the flight is always delayed why not set a different flight time and then we would all get to the airport later instead of sitting around for an extra hour. But more importantly, when they know the flight is going to be delayed tell us why don’t simply put up an electronic notice saying “DELAYED” we know that as we are all still sitting here wondering what is happening when we should be half way to Leeds by now.


We are only the customers, no need to keep us informed.


Eventually we get on the plane and the pilot explains that a heavy rainstorm somewhere had caused the delay and we take off. Twenty minutes into the flight the stewardess announces the toilets are out of order and the drinks trolley will be coming along any minute. I look round the plane and assess the numbers of let’s say older people and quickly come to the conclusions that no toilets and a drinks trolley is not a good idea but it happens anyway. A little further on the flight with a lot of people now fidgeting and sipping their drinks very slowly a flap in the ceiling of the plane has become loose and the stewardess presses in back into place, five minutes later it falls on a passengers head. Couple this with arm rests that have broken and seats that recline even without pressing the buttons and you begin to wonder how old these planes are and if ‘low cost’ means low maintenance.


We are only the customers, no need to make us comfortable.


And while on the subject of low cost what really annoys me is the way the airline advertises its prices. £5 there and £15 back the web site says so that's £40 for two of us, wrong, the total cost is over one hundred pounds when taxes are added. How can they advertise a flight for £5 when I can’t take that flight for less than £30. It’s like the £160 Habitat table that can’t be bought for less than £200 or the £179 car service from Dixon’s Motors that cannot be bought for less than £189. How can they all get away with it.


We are only the customers, no need to tell us the true cost.


Eventually we land at Leeds and a bus takes us to the arrivals hall, the first thing that strikes you is that you have to climb a rather long staircase, there is a down escalator but only stairs to go up, I would like to meet the architect who thought that was a good idea. We are now all struggling up the stairs behind Fred and Alice who must have a combined age of well over 150 and who are desperately in need of the loo. We then all pile down a corridor to the passport control desks having to file through one side of a set of double doors as the other side is locked but we are nearly there now and I know from our last trip that there are four passport desks so we should get through quickly. How wrong can I be!


There may be four desks but there are only two people and one of them is dealing with people who don’t have an EU passport so that leaves us with one person to scan two hundred and forty odd passports of people who are increasingly needing a loo.


We are only the customers, no need to pay out for more staff we can all queue.


But eventually after queuing fifteen minutes for the first available loo we get our cases and set of on our drive home. Collect a packet of fish and chips on the way and the world seems a better place all that remains is the story of the suspect red bag but that’s for another day. We have a few weeks at home now with a lawn and flower beds to prepare at the bottom of our garden, that will be a lot of digging and heavy work for me while Christine snips and prunes and designs the way it will look.