A few days before the trip Sensei Riley rang the taxi company to confirm that everything was ok with the booking and the reply from the friendly taxi operator was "Yes why wouldn't it be?" to which he replied that he was only being courteous in a professional manner as he hoped she was being the same.

At 3am on Friday, Sensei Riley received a phone call from the taxi driver saying that he was outside the butchers but no-body was there. The first pick up at 3am should've been at Jackie's house and then onto the butchers, hence no-one was ready as it was early. Once the pickups had been sorted, the taxi driver drove like a maniac at great speed in bad weather and road conditions down the M62 to Manchester Airport.

Manchester Airport:

After the escapade on the last group trip to Singapore with Sensei Derrick having his entire bathroom cabinet of toiletries in his hand luggage, everyone was prepared this time and took extra clear bags for him, to find out that he'd put them in his suitcase this time. Great shock all round.

Breakfast was in need, so we made our way to the Giraffe pub in the airport and ordered 18 bacon butties and cups of coffee. The bread rolls turned out to be brioche so it was definitely a different start to the day to have bacon and sweet rolls. The boarding gate was announced and so a mad dash to the gate was made, with half eaten bacon butties in hand, to then be queueing to get on to the plane.

A very subdued flight, with most people sleeping.