Picture: On their first flight ever eating Jet2.com gruel

I beat the alarm set for 5 a.m. and fumbled around to get the last of my bits 'n' pieces together before heading off to Manchester Airport where we were going hand over our car to a complete stranger for 2 weeks. Having looked at many options for getting to the airport, including a lift off our Cath or the train we concluded that driving and parking the car would be our best. But then that opens a huge list of other options like where do you put it without it getting nicked! We discovered a company (one of many) who for under £50 would look after our car. On the way to the airport you simply ring them and they are there waiting for you when you arrive. I was hoping it would be a better job than those hoods who used to hang around the Apollo Theatre 'looking after your car' who basically charged you a fiver not to nick your car. I had visions of a Vauxhall Zafira being used in jewellery heists or ram raids on Viccy Wine whilst we were sunning it in Italy. Anyway, sure enough he was there and had a trustworthy look about him, so I handed over the keys after I had reset the mileometer to check they didn't drive to Plymouth and back. By this time we had got a trolley and Andrew had loaded it up with all our bags.
It's been a long time since me or Emma have flown, and this was the first time for the kids so really we looked as clueless as we were. Straight away we fell prey to the luggage tracking bloke who convinced us it was worth paying the £2 to stick a label on our bags that would be tracked (don't the airlines do that anyway?) Then we went in search of Jet-2.com's desk. Not many folk at it so we swiftly got to the front of the queue and all looked on nervously to check our bags were within the 22kg allowance. None of us were anywhere near, with at least 10kg to spare on some bags. I was tempted to put a couple of bricks in just to get my money's worth! Off the bags went, with the peace of mind that they were being tracked.
Into the departure lounge I took the precaution to have a dump on land rather than in the air. I didn't really fancy stinking the plane out so I 'dropped the little one's off in the swimming pool' on the safety of land. When I returned Andrew was very excited that he had just seen Ricky Hatton walk by. It was then a obligatory visit to WH SMiths to buy papers and sweets for the flight.
Airport lounges are great for people watching. You know that some of the morons sat amongst you will soon be stuck with you in a small space...but who would it be? Was it the nerdy socks and sandals man, the large stag party of white van men? No as their Magaluf '10 t-shirts gave it away. I also remember watching a Channel 5 documentary on how to survive air crashes, that said survivors are the ones who step on others to get out of a burning plane. I began to work out how easy it would be to climb over my fellow passengers. Then the pilot arrived...thank goodness. Before long we were boarding Jet 2's finest winged taxi. We were seated one row behind the exit, so I only had to clamber over the designer bloke sat in front of me to get off. We were all a bit nervous/excited and I was gasping sighs of relief that we had managed to get on the plane. All we had to do now was get off it and drive.
The flight went well. There are few highlights, but the views over the Alps were great and the experience of Jet 2 cuisine was entertaining. It was barely edible, but the kids fell for the novelty value of it. The beans were so over cooked in the microwave that they were stuck to the cardboard box they were served in.The designer bloke in front of us obviously wasn't that impressed and offered us his cooked breakfast. Suddenly stepping on him to escape would be a little bit harder now as I tucked into his rubbery scrambled eggs.
We arrived in Pisa and we were all slightly disappointed when the pilot reported it was 24 C outside. However his thermometer must have been playing up because as when we stepped on the runway we were hit with a wave of heat. We got our bags and went in search of Hertz to pick up our Ford Focus.
We decided to walk the 800m rather than use the free bus. It got us to the front of the queue again and we picked up our keys in no time at all. The lady then tried to sting us with an expensive super waver fee to protect you against any claims. We'd been warned about it so we took out a policy with another firm for £50 that protects you should you lose your expensive waver in the event of an accident. It was around £175 cheaper than Hertz own so check out companies on line. Here's a useful article to advise you on how to do it. Taking others advice I also checked the car over for scratches etc. There was at least 1 on each panel, and some fairly big dents too that the lovely Hertz woman had failed to mention, so I went through each one with her and checked them on her list. Then we had the conundrum of how to get 5 people and their bags in a Focus and contend with an annoying teenage daughter demanding I shut the door because I was letting the heat in. As we only had a 1 hour drive ahead of us we put one on the floor and Emma squashed in.
This was a first driving a left side drive motor. It was confusing so I decided to spin it around the car park for a while before getting trapped on the vortex of the Autostrada. Once your on you can't get off! It took a while to adjust to the left side thing, and there were a few near misses with the kerb. However, it was not the mad driving others had warned me about, and the journey was fairly uneventful and relaxing once we got going....that was until we met the toll gates.