Montague Burton would n't have had to deal with this sort of thing, but his suitcase would n't have had wheels.

pauldaviescartoons

April 20

Off to Italy for a walking holiday. How to get there. Flight from Heathrow, sounds good but it takes off at some ungodly hour in the early morning. This means spending the night in beautiful downtown Hounslow so tha t one can be early enough to be at the airport at 4.30 in the morning. That's 4.30 in the morning. When all good people should be ticked up in bed rather than milling about in an airport lounge.

Bus to Heathrow the day before was generally uneventful apart from the temperature of the bus, one minute Baltic, the next gas mark 8. On debussing, there must be such a word, I mentioned this problem to our driver, he looked like a blonde Viking with pony tail half way down his back ( a suspicion of heavy metal at the weekends methinks ) and he looked at me with steely blue eyes and simply said, "I find it like that too" a disarming way of avoiding a complaint. A swerve around it you might say. The obvious conclusion: no idea what to do about it, a design fault in the bus. The manufacturers like to cook their passengers and then freeze then for later.

So onwards to the airport hotel. Slogans on the walkway from the bus station told us facts like "150 metres from freshly ground coffee", as if you'd come all that way just for a decent coffee. Delightful check in people, all smiles and helpfulness. How do we get from here to Terminal 5 for the plane at 4.30:in the morning. Taxi! Strewth. So that's another 25 quid.

Arriving in departures at Terminal 5 after arriving in arrivals, took us some time and a long walk, well I suppose it is a walking holiday. The place was teeming with people all looking as miserable as I did. A lift full of people had no smiling faces, and who can blame them. Lifts are not fun for anyone and even less fun with a large suitcase. How did we ever manage without these little wheels on our suitcases? I suppose we just didn't carry as much. A small cardboard suitcase was considered sufficient. Now there are more zips and pockets in the average suitcase than there are in a branch of Burton's the tailors. Whatever happened to them?

Well, they went the same way as cardboard suitcases of course.

In the quite recent past one approached a desk at an airport where a frosty receptionists would look you up and down, check your passport , then heave your case onto a belt after sticking a big label on it. Not any more. Now you scan a code and a label is printed and you attach it yourself. What's happened to Miss Frost? She's been transferred to a desk job somehwere in Ruislip where she's clear of any tagging duties. She stares at a screen all day instead, meeting no one and wishing for a time when she had power over nervous travellers, now she has none. It's probably a good thing and missed by no one.

Back into the teeming throng with security to cope with. Here your careful dressing of the morning is disturbed as you struggle to keep your underpants in tune with your trousers when your belt is required to go through a scanner. At least this time no one insisted that I take my boots off. Walking boots always worn as they take up inordinate room in the small non cardboard suitcase. I had thought of bringing the lightweight Chines boots from Amazon, but thoughts of rolling up the rugged rocks in irresponsible footwear got the better of me.

Always good to check others in the airport queue for 'walking boot wearing', they might be your companions for the week. Oh God, they look like Brexit Loving Pandemic Deniers , might be a grim week and not get any better than a crushed seat on a BA plane. Moving on.

Speaking about that plane, after a short delay in the airport we are all out on a bus. Is it any wonder they call them Gates at an airport, as there is much to remind you of sheep herding. Having got us into a crushed bus, they loaded us onto a crushed plane. Legroom is denied to all but those paying extra at the front of the beast. Much dancing around with overhead lockers posing a threat.

We are in the air and are given a small bottle of water and a tiny biscuit to sustain us. We land at Pisa in about an hour and a half or so. I'm leaning towards trying to look forward to it all. Short memories might help, this will serve to remind me to think again about going by plane, anywhere.

Doors to manual.

So gathering round a man holding up a card with the company name on it in the small airport that is Pisa international. A selection of souls with hardy shoes give the indication that walking will be done and a disinclination like mine to pack their boots. Onto the bus, it's BA revisited. Designed for small Italian men there is very little room for the knees, and we will be needing to look after the knees this week. We have hills to climb.

Our leader here is a man from Yorkshire who was a chemistry teacher in Cambridge. He's been leading these holidays for 35 years but things have changed. A new policy has been brought in to use just local guides, so apart from meeting and greeting at the airport and showing us where the local store is, he has little else to do, apart from walking along with us.

We are 3 hours on this cramped bus so a stop at a motorway services was more than welcome, if only to stretch out the legs. An Italian toasted sandwich made us feel a lot better, and the tiny cup of coffee kept me well awake for the rest of the drive.

As we approached the village we are to stay the green got greener and the Tuscan farmhouses with their cypress trees and conical pine trees, from where they get pine nuts used in pesto all look fabulous.

Tonight though the rain is coming down in buckets.