Teenage travellers bring about holidays from hell

THE OED defines holiday as a “period of leisure and recreation spent away from home or travelling.” 

The definition of budget airlines — “hell in a metal tube” — contravenes this, especially when you are travelling with 13-year-old boys. Not one, but two — the second one bought onboard to appease the first one, who doesn’t want to come on holiday at all, but has expressed a preference to stay at home with his mates, playing on his phone in bus shelters rather than playing on the beach in the south of France.

Contrary? Mary, Mary, you have no frickin idea.

Only when another 13-year-old is enlisted — one whom I know barely from Adam — does he grudgingly get onboard.

At least, we try, but the budget airline involved — not the Irish one, but the one that promises ease of travel — has other ideas.

The unknown 13-year-old has packed hair gel in his bag. David Beckham hair and shower gel and a great big tube of sunscreen. His wash bag is in the wrong suitcase and now needs to go in the bin.

He looks stricken. I feel bad for him, so I run back to the bag drop and check the wash bag in with the rest of the hold luggage.

Then the tent pegs in his bag show up in the x-ray machine as weapons, as does his camping cutlery, so the bag is pulled to one side, and a lengthy discussion ensues, once we have been frisked, x-rayed, scanned, and wiped for explosives. The tent pegs are blunt, as is the butter knife wrapped in his socks, so they can travel.

Gate closed, says the sign next to our flight number. We run. It’s Gatwick, so that means a 5km sprint through an obstacle course of wheelie suitcases and clanking bottles of duty free.

“Gate closed,” say the staff, even though we are only a few minutes late. “But our luggage is on board,” I say, incredulous.

“It will be taken off again,” says the stony-faced gate witch. “But we could get on faster than the luggage is taken off,” I whisper. “Gate closed,” she snarls.

Our plane sits on the runway for another 30 minutes as we are escorted through the bowels of the airport, through passport control, and reunited with our luggage. “Not our problem,” says customer services.

All other flights are full for several days. This is when travelling with 13-year-olds reaches the apex of suckiness. The one carrying my DNA glowers, huffs, but offers not a single syllable of solidarity. The other one hides behind his phone.

Dragging our luggage away from the hell-troll at customer services, I buy three new flights to Marseille. From Heathrow, via Madrid, rather like going to Dublin via the Outer Hebrides. “Never mind,” I say brightly, like Mary Poppins mid nervous breakdown. “We’ll get there in the end.”