Not so cheap flights

We heard yesterday evening that the Eurostar that Paul and Catthy were planning to use to get to Parid had been cancelled. They were scrabbling around for alternatives. I suggested Eurostar to Brussels and then a train from Brussels to Paris. In the end, Lel managed to get them on a BA flight to Lyon, and Mark booked them tickets from Lyon to Paris by train. 

I was awake early. Coffee was calling and who am I to ignore its siren call. Being Saturday, I had the usual Zoom call with my cousins. This was lively today, all but one agreeing how dreadful the Olympic opening ceremony had been. The chat went back and forth over several topics but seemed mainly focused on sports.

After the call, I settled down to look at social media, then remembered that I was planning to upgrade our luggage allowance for the forthcoming trip. I went online. The price had increased from £44 to £58 in the last couple of days. I then realised that though we had return tickets, this needed to be paid in each direction. Not going to happen!

I reviewed the rules for the existing baggage allowance. I realised (belatedly) that we actually had a fairly good allowance, spread over three small suitcases. I explained all of this to Di and we retrieved our various roll-on cases from the wardrobe and the loft. Each one was measured. Each one met the dimensions in height, width, or depth. None conformed to all three... and these "low-cost carriers" can be devils for finding ways to charge you extra. We settled down with Amazon and spent a couple of hours reviewing cabin bags that would conform - and were of sufficient quality to survive. It was remarkable how many claimed to conform to the measurements but the customer comments pointed out that they didn't and were oversized. We finally found bags that should fit the bill and ordered one each.

I haven't yet heard whether Paul and Cathy made it to Paris, but hopefully, they are in their hotel getting ready for their first events.

Royal Mail was meant to collect a package to return to Sky today. They confirmed it in an email - collection between 11:09 and 15:09, but obviously couldn't be bothered as it's still sitting by the door waiting for them at 18:05.