So after a round trip to Cork with my father, most of which I will admit to having slept through, I was back at home, and ready to catch my scarily expensive 4pm flight to London Gatwick. However at that point, the price of the flight had been the least of my worries for quite a while. It continued to be the least of my worries when my father suddenly decided that he wanted to take a family photograph before I left.

Leaving aside the fact that I looked like utter crap after our morning of Operation Passport Retrieval, there was also a slight issue with this. Time happens to be linear, and check-in for my flight was opening in about 30 mins. Having had one close call over the summer, and having paid a fortune for the damn flight, I was a little paranoid about being late. Nevertheless, the man had just driven me to Cork, so I let my sister do all the bitching and objecting. I don’t think it was being photographed that she objected to, merely being photographed when she wasn’t ready. Naturally the ensuing argument was steadily eating away at her already limited getting ready time. Vanity overcame principle with alacrity, and all that remained was for my father to arse about with a camera for a while.

Once we finished the bout of cheerful disregard that constituted a photo shoot, I finally got underway. My parents both came with me, to my mild surprise, and when we got to the airport gave me a lump of money, to my extreme surprise. Not an obscene lump of money or anything, but a substantial one, and one which I certainly wasn’t expecting. Which boosted my financial situation from “OK