Yes, I know I went to a funeral, but every journey is an adventure.
I flew from Gatwick with my cousins Elizabeth and Finbar (2 and 4 from Aunt #2, Pat, who died in 1989).
Liz is 46 and has never flown before, which I find astounding, especially considering that her three brothers are always jetting off here, there and everywhere.
There again, maybe not so surprising. Liz and Paul, her-ex, were never amongst the high earners. They got by, and back in the early 80s when they were first married, most people didn't go abroad for holidays. Kris was born in 83 and Dom in 88; in those days people just never took small children abroad (okay, I know a few did, but it's not like today when toddlers are seasoned flyers).
They had a lot of problems in the 90s - like so many people, they were faced with redundancy and repossession, followed, sadly, by divorce. It has been a struggle - not uniquely difficult, but, difficult.
Funnily enough, she's off to Turkey with a friend in a few weeks, and is taking the children to Florida next year after Dom's GCSEs. So having never flown, she's doing it twice this year.
Talking with my father's cousin Barney we were saying how we had never met. I commented that we were not good at travelling. Together we said, nobody was in those days.
Nowadays flying is so cheap and so straightforward. Our tickets were £125 return. If we had been going for pleasure and with more notice, we could have had them a lot cheaper. These no-frills airlines are excellent for short hops (although everyone advises avoiding Ryan Air). A few years ago it would have been two or three times that price.
Finbar said he has never shopped in Duty Free. (I could post a very long post about the oddities of Finbar). I pointed out that the gin available in Duty Free is very much stronger than that on sale in ordinary shops in Britain.
Driving through Antrim Town was strange. I said it when I had a tour of the Shankhill Road in 1990 and I'll say it again. You may think you're British, but nowhere in Britain - except perhaps the Orange areas of Glasgow, Liverpool - do you see Union flags flying from ordinary houses and kerbstones painted blue-and-red. They're chasing after something that doesn't exist.
It was stranger driving through substantial, but isolated villages that lacked a pub. I commented on this; Finbar, who has visited a few times, said they were Protestant villages. Surely to god even Protestants are allowed a drink?
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