If you haven’t already got one booked, now’s the time to start thinking about your summer holiday! It’s only a few short months until the school summer holidays, so if you have a family don’t Johan Lundgren, the easyJet chief executive, said: “We have consistently seen that there is pent-up demand for travel and this surge in bookings shows the signal from the government that it plans to reopen travel has been what UK consumers have been waiting for.” Holidays that were my normal, that didn’t involve a plane, or an airport. Sometimes a big fancy train but more often than not a big boat. The ferry to France. On choppy seas. Spiriting us away from the rain of England and depositing us in the rain in France. Which was better rain. Less rain-y rain. Holiday rain so it was all OK. Andrew Flintham, the managing director of Tui UK and Ireland, said: “The announcement from the prime minister was positive and shows that by working with the travel industry on a risk-based framework our customers will have the opportunity to travel abroad this summer. We will continue to work closely with the government so people can look forward to a well-deserved break away, after what has been a very difficult year for many.” Marathon weekend is usually busy in the morning at Epcot (finishing line) and you may find some roads around the World are single lane traffic. Its usually much better in the afternoon when most of the runners have finished.

If you haven’t already got one booked, now’s the time to start thinking about your summer holiday! It’s only a few short months until the school summer holidays, so if you have a family don’t wait any longer to start thinking about booking a break somewhere hot.It won’t surprise anyone reading this to learn that I have a well developed persecution complex. Most weeks, despite living a largely untroubled and privileged life, I can find something to moan about. I often trot out the phrases “you couldn’t write it” or “you couldn’t make it up” to bemoan whatever the latest minor upset might be. However, after what has been a troubled couple of years holiday wise, the events of the last week or so really have been comedic. Typhoon Lagoon (whoomp! Arrgghh! 🤭) has been open in January, they didn’t (pre covid!) close for refurbishments until nearer the end of the month and it was warm enough for swimming. This brilliant comedian first rose to mainstream fame in the year 2000 with his Live at the Top of the Tower tour. In the flush of post booking excitement I went crazy and bought some new shorts. Madness. as I have several perfectly acceptable pairs that I have only had for 20 years. Once that had sunk in after a few seconds, my stomach churned and those special words escaped my lips. “You couldn’t (expletive) write it”.

Thankfully, the box office were able to reprint them and we got in, but it did feel like we had forgotten how to operate in these matters. This does not auger well for the logistical exercise of getting to a different country with everything we need. It’s funny what seeing one overfilled boot of a car can do to you. Muttering to the Husband that it was a good job we weren’t flying off anywhere because what we do with ALL THAT STUFF?! A short drive and unload to our holiday home 30 minutes later, with further mutterings from the husband on whether we actual needed ALL THAT STUFF, an afternoon of exploring we got the kids to bed, popped the Prosecco, lit the log fire and settled down to play scrabble and chat. My winning scrabble boardMaybe because it is a longer show with a better mix of humour but it is better than his purely observational humour of the other show. Here he draws heavily on real life but he also does it with a real humour and energy that makes it stand out from the loads of comics who do the "isn't it funny when…" stuff. I'm not sure how well it will travel because it is not only very English but it is specifically very Northern observations that those not knowing people similar to his family and friends. However even without this knowledge the show is still funny because he has such energy and his delivery is much better than in the later video from Bolton. The tour operator Jet2holidays and the Jet2 carrier said summer bookings had leapt 600% since Monday afternoon, compared with this time last week, to mainland Spain and its islands, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. It’s done. We are booked for an overseas holiday and surely with just two weeks to go, not even the raging incompetence of our government can scupper those plans now? I mean, according to their latest “dead cat” nonsense leak to the press, I may have to convert my GBP to Pounds, Shillings and Pence before then paying for some Euros if they have their way, but by hook or by crook (and they are all that) we should be on that plane. Appreciating the absolute carnage that is probably ongoing now in the rush for UK tourists to book stuff, I feel quite smug that we have pretty much everything in the bag for prices we can tolerate.