Branston Pickle plane bombs

I'm leaving for France tomorrow. Holy shit.

I'm just about ready to go. My alarm's set for 02:00 tomorrow morning (oh joy) to catch an early plane from Luton, which is a horrible thought. I can't remember the last time I had to get out of bed and go somewhere at 2AM. Unless you count waking up drunk in hospital, and to be honest I can't really remember much about that either.

My plane leaves at about 6AM from Luton, and should hopefully get into Bordeaux at about 09:30 local time. Once I get there I'm meant to be meeting up with a delightful Frenchman called Thierry, who'll be my senior at the school I'm working at and seems like a top guy. He's very kindly offered to pick me up from the airport and give me a lift to where I'm staying... if I bring him a jar of Branston Pickle.

Pretending for the sake of diplomacy that paying for petrol money with table condiments is completely normal behaviour, I've gone out and invested in two (TWO!) jars of pickle for my new French mentor. I've even stuck little bows on them in a definitely-not-sucking-up attempt to get off on the right foot.

Oh yes

A little bit too pleased with my efforts, I dropped them both in with the rest of my hand luggage and completely forgot about them. At least, until earlier today, when I realised my mistake- they weren't going to get through Customs. If water bottles aren't allowed, I can't see them believing me if I tell them I desperately need two jars of Branston Pickle at hand for a flight across the channel. Unable to bear the thought of my beautifully decorated pickle jars being destroyed on suspicion of containing liquid explosives, I jammed them into the tiny amount of space left in my big bag instead.

On that note, I finally finished my packing yesterday. I'd started packing a week or so ago but never got very far. Until Tuesday, I'd got so far as to find a few socks, two forks and a spoon and left them in an otherwise empty suitcase in the front room for people to trip over. But yesterday I decided to blitz it and get it over with, and in just a few minutes I had completely exhausted my paltry Easyjet weight allowance. Exasperated and wishing I'd done all this sooner, it was then that I remembered a suggestion I'd heard recently from someone who travelled a lot. His advice was this:

They don't weigh what you wear or what you've got on you. Just pull on as many shirts and jumpers as you can and Easyjet can't charge you a penny.

I'm not sure this is a great idea; taking some stuff out my bags would be a much more sensible solution. Who even needs a duvet anyway? But it's a tempting option and I may do it regardless.

So if tomorrow I'm found passed out from heatstroke under the blistering Bordeaux sun with three jumpers, five shirts and a jar of Branston Pickle in each pocket, there's no need to worry. Honest.