Packing for the holiday

First of all don't read this if you work for Ryanair, it's of absolutely no interest to you, truly.

I wish this could be a light-hearted little post about my minimal wardrobe and holiday knitting, it isn't. You remember last time we were at our house in Italy, a couple of months ago, we had problems connecting the newly installed wood burning stove to the newly installed flue liner. We left the house with lots of metal pipe fitted in the chimney, the hearth and stove in position and nothing working. Back home Mr FF did some investigation and decided we needed a flexible flue, a product that is manufactured in Italy but not readily available there, we did make enquiries during our last visit. The cost of having a flue delivered back to Italy from the UK was enormous so Mr FF spoke to Ryanair about the possibility of taking one on a flight and they said that provided the item complied with their dimensions for hold luggage we could pay up and check in what liked. He ordered the product and explained to the suppliers his intention asking them if they could pack it to the approved dimensions. The said they would but they didn't and this arrived, large yes but also wide.

I'm starting to feel a bit ill just writing about this.

Mr FF then suggested he repack the flue and put it in the bag he uses to take his bicycle on flights, he also suggested that he book it in as a bike but I thought we needed to be honest and not risk rejection. So he decided to source a suitable box and in Edinburgh we found a bike box that we intended to cut down to the required dimensions. At the weekend we attempted to recoil the flue, though it is flexible there is a limit to how must stress it will take and it was just too wide to fit into the box. It's now bubble wrapped again and in the bike bag, its huge and quite heavy because also in the bag are four new legs for the stove. It didn't sit level on the completely level marble hearth and the manufacturers sent us a new set of legs that we need to fit though I'd much prefer to bung a bit of something under the wobbly leg and get on with my life. We are parking our car at the airport so that if we are not allowed to check in the monster bag we can leave it in the car for two weeks. Our flight is at 6.30 on Sunday morning, I am worried, very worried, about getting the bag on the plane, getting it into the hire car at the other end and stuffing the bloomin flue down the chimney if we get it to the house. I can't even think about what knitting I want to take.