Berrie, Lyra, Oggs and Zeb chat thread

[MatthewBellamysMuse]

Number 13?

Here it is Oggs

Farewell my lovlies for DH wishes to hide the laptop now!

Back in a fortnight!
Woo hoo!

Hope you all have a lovely time

I know I'm too late but have a fabulous time, Berrie and family.
If you can find an internet cafe, give us an update. Campsite looks lovely btw.

Looks lovely. I hope she has good weather!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Have just booked flights with RyanAir for July.

I was just reviewing the details and realised it is saying that I can only check-in online . I can't check in at the airport like I have been doing for the last few years !!

You can only check-in online if you have a passport. I don't.

If I want to apply for a passport it will cost me £72, and another £46 for dd, and there's a real possibility we wouldn't get them back before we are due to go anyway .

I can't afford to pay for passports. We never bloody go abroad. I shouldn't need one for internal flights .

Feeling very upset, angry and pissed off. Mostly at my own stupidity for assuming it would be the same as it has been for the last couple of years, and also at sodding bloody RyanAir for moving the goalposts.

Don't know what to do.

Wooo. Spooky. I had EXACTLY the same conversation today. I too have no passport. I too have to fly - to Cambridge in 2 weeks. Bastards. Is it possible to check in in person using your driving licence? For which they shaft you £40. Grrrr.
You can expedite your passport. Someone is reassuring me that it can be done. I don't believe them.

Plan B is driving. Plan C is train.

Oh crap .

I spoke to dh and we agreed that it would probably be best to grit our teeth and go for a passport (if I did the fast track method through a post office I could get it back within 3 weeks)...

then I realised that because my old passport is in my maiden name I would need to send in my marriage certificate...

which is in Thai...

so I would need to get it translated and stamped and signed by a translator...

which will take more time and cost more money...

Fed up, feeling very small, and for some reason (maybe I'm due on... no way of knowing...) in tears...

Shit. It's £97 for a 1 week expedited service.
Train's also £100. And it takes as long by train as it does to drive.

It's a pile of shit isn't it?

I can't drive as we only have the one car. Train will be too expensive.

Only other options are

1. pay robbing bastards RyanAir the £40 (or will it be £80? £40 each for me and dd) to check in at the airport, or

1. get DH to drive me to Manchester (wasting a whole day), stay overnight with his elderly aunt, and then get my Dad (70 odd) or my brother (who would have to take time off work) to drive up to Mcr (thus wasting a whole day) to come and get me. Then I would have to pay petrol costs, which again will all told be about £100.

Fuck!

I've just checked. You can't check in at the airport any more. fuckers.
I think I'll get the train. At least I can get some work done. But unlike you, I'll get my ticket paid for. What a nightmare.

Who did you check with? The premium rate phone no?

I don't have the option of paying the £40 at the airport as that is to re-issue the online boarding card, and with no passport I can't get the online boarding card in the first place.

Bollocks.

So, I try to get a translation of my wedding certificate and rush through passport applications for me and dd, enabling me to use the tickets I have already paid for, or I forfeit the cost of the tickets and have to sort train/coach.

I really don't think I can do the two days travelling down option with a stopover. It's just too much. We have to do that on the way home anyway...

That's something Zeb. At least you're not paying, and you can always read a book or something.

How do you do rail travel now? I can't just contact British Rail can I?
Do I have to patch together different stretches and book with different companies? or is there a one stop place I can go to book?

I'm really fed up

Oggs, this and this is from the Ryanair website.

You can check and buy train tickets on The Trainline. You can buy a ticket which will take you straight through, although if you're going via London, you'll probably need a tube ticket. Where are you heading for?

Good luck.

I thought you just needed photo ID for Ryanair. Would your driving licence not do? They keep changing the rule all the time, just to confuse people, I'm sure. We flew Ryanair in April and you could still check in at the airport then.

I saw those bits from RyanAir Zeb. Thinking about it now, what used to happen is that when you booked online you were offered the choice of online or airport check-in (online was free and airport cost).
I could only ever do airport as I didn't have a passport.

This time when making the booking there was no choice offered, but nothing either that flagged up the fact that you could only check-in online.

It's only when you've paid and get the confirmation that it says in capitals (and with exclamation marks) that all passengers must check-in online. Fuckers.

I looked into Thai translations last night and the Thai embassy in Hull does them. It would cost for the translation and then a further £28 for legalisation (which is necessary with a marriage certificate). It will also take about a week. I can't apply for a passport until I've got the translation so it's cutting it a bit too fine.

Lyra if you booked tickets before 20 May 2009 you can check-in at airport with a driving license.
If you booked after that date you can only check-in online.

From 29th Oct driving licenses will no longer be a valid form of id.

Thanks for the train link Zeb, I managed to find them last night.
I put in all my info and it said it had found a ticket for £17.50! By the time you've added on all the surcharges it has gone up to £57.50. So that would be £115 for me and dd, plus nine hours on the train with 3 changeovers, one of them quite tight.

Ah shit... what to do... what to do...?

Feeling a little more positive... we're going for the passport option.

I've sent off our marriage certificate for translation (£35). I now need to go to the Post Office to collect application forms, and the Registrar to collect a birth Certificate for dd (£9) as the only one I have is a partial which doesn't list me or dh on it.
The Post Office I need to go to is an hour away , but luckily is in the same town as the Registrar.

What a pain Oggs. Ryanair are offering less and less service for your money all the time. Really, you shouldn't need to get a passport to travel from Scotland to England. It's completely nuts.
If it's any consolation, my passport came within a week of my application going back to the post office, so you should have yours in plenty of time. Then maybe you'll be tempted to go abroad...

Woohoo! I weighed myself and my weight now starts with a 9 for the first time in too many years. I'm not low carbing anymore so it must be the exercise. Also I've cut out the glass of wine or five every evening (drinking rum instead ).

That's brilliant Lyra . Well done.
I'm seeing the nurse tomorrow and she'll be weighing me. I'm dreading it. When I saw her a fortnight ago I'd gained .

Have either of you watched The Haunted Airman yet?

I don't think we'll turn into holiday abroad types. We don't even do holidays in this country, and dh hasn't got a valid passport .
I would like to take dd to visit bil and family in Thailand but we'd need to do a lot of saving up first.

Haven't watched it yet, I've been hooked on a book, which I finished last night. Tonight I'm supposed to be sorting out the shambles that is the front room, since the piano's arrival, but I suspect it won't happen.

Me neither. Don't know what I've been doing with my time.....

OK, I finally watched it. Whew, he is rather handsome, isn't he. I'm not sure I quite 'got' it, so please feel to explain it to me, but it was very restful on my tired eyes. The hair's much better than it was in Twilight, which is a bonus.

Although I have to fess up that now I have broadband and a decent laptop, I'm getting addicted to all the Dr Who re-runs.