Never assume things

Perhaps the reason travel is becoming more stressful is partly to blame on the small print. As we know, spending hours looking at a screen means that you want to read less and less text. What with all the online booking, buying, checking-in and so forth, there is always a screed of small print to wade through. But if you've got as far as clicking the purchase button it's usually the last thing you want to look at.

Having booked a hire car through Hertz to transport us from one Ryanair airport (Prestwick) to another Ryanair airport (Liverpool) - don't ask why - I turned up at Prestwick with all the bits of printout I thought I needed. The bit of paper I didn't have was the paper part of my driving licence. Having hired cars in Italy many times, they only wanted the pink international driving licence (with photo). I had assumed it would be the same here. How wrong I was. I had to trek all the way home to find it. No mean feat considering I hadn't seen it for a couple of years. I was almost at hair-tearing point when the prayers uttered en famille to St Anthony worked and the piece of paper fell from a bundle of paperwork.

So back we went to Prestwick and picked up the car. Why the paper piece should be so important, I have no idea. But it served to prove that one should never assume things.

Tomorrow we sally forth to Liverpool. Whether we make it to Bergamo remains to be seen.