Our flight was due to leave London's Stansted airport at 18-45 arriving at Friedrichshaven at 21-30 local time. Flying out of Stansted is, for us, inconvenient. Flying Ryan-air for anyone is aggravating. Anything that interrupts their scheduled quick turnaround is generally unwelcome. They do, however, carry bikes, if not too lovingly and in this case to and from convenient destinations.

We rode from our house in South London, mostly above the Northern line tracks, without incident, to about a half mile of Liverpool St. station for the airport train. A couple of traffic lights from the station a taxi driver changed lanes in front of Barbara without signalling, causing her to swerve towards the kerb to avoid contact. I rode alongside at a traffic light and said, 'Give us a clue, pal.' 'What do you mean?' he said. I then noticed he was stuffing into his big fat mouth, what looked like a big fat Cornish pasty; lunch on the run. 'You nearly knocked my wife off her bike.' I rode up to the stop line and took off again on the green. As I overtook the taxi again at the next stop light, the driver threw what looked like a Mars bar wrapper at me. It bounced off my chest. Barbara caught me up again, 'What happened?' 'That **** threw a wrapper at me.' I offered an obscene gesture in his direction for the sake of form, but in truth we were both laughing at the pettiness of it all. He didn't take too kindly at our reaction and as we knew he would, made an effort to 'skim' both of us, before turning left towards, I guessed, the Liverpool St. cab rank.

We aimed for the ticket office and I bought the tickets for the Stansted Express. Not too close to the back of my mind was the thought that, if we had enough time, it might be appropriate to seek out our cab driver with the intention of exchanging a few harsh words. All that was also chucked out the window, when we discovered that the Stansted Express does not carry bikes. That is to say, it doesn't carry complete bikes. The woman at the ticket barrier insisted on us taking off the wheels. Not just before we got on the train, but before we were admitted to the platform. The train was situated at the far end. This meant carrying the dismembered machines about 100metres. Our bikes are equipped with mudguards [fenders] so as a means of saving space on the train the whole process was totally futile. We were flustered. Our fellow passengers [all non-cyclists] were sympathetic, both amused and bemused.

A note to fellow cyclo-tourists: DO NOT USE THE STANSTED EXPRESS. Outside of the evening rush-hours, the local trains offer a hassle- free and 30% cheaper alternative on the same route. You may have to ride a couple of miles from Stansted Mountfitchet into the airport.

At the airport while Barbara waited in the queue to check in, I removed the pedals and turned the handlebars on both bikes. My bars, on being turned, would not tighten back down in the parallel to frame position. I had to strap them to the top tube with cargo tape. We had bought cheap plastic covers for the machines and with them fitted and tyres deflated, the bikes were good to go.

Having sorted out the bikes, we were now subject to the new restrictions on cabin baggage. A week or so before our departure the British Intelligence service had discovered an alleged plot to blow up a trans-atlantic flight. At first all flights out of Brirish airports were cancelled, then later allowed to fly with a near-total ban on hand baggage, with a particular emphasis on liquids, on the grounds that a potential terrorists might use the aircraft toilet as an explosives manufacturing plant. We were allowed keys, money and little else. We were also asked to remove our shoes for inspection. I'm inclined to think of all this, as yet another pronouncement from the Ministry of Fear; another self-serving justification for the invasion of Iraq.

During the course of the flight a reassuringly cultured and well-modulated Irish voice announced that its owner was Michael Durkin and that he was the captain of the ship etc. and that we would be landing at Friedrichshafen at 9-30pm local time and thank you for flying Ryan-air. On arrival, the aircraft hit the tarmac like a fat turkey on one leg; bang, bang, bang, the roughest landing I've ever experienced anywhere. Apocryphally, a Ryan-air pilot has been reported taxi-ing to the terminal at Stansted with one set of wheels in the air.

In the airport terminal I put the bits of bike back together and pumped up the tyres.. There was no real damage to the machines.

We set out in the dark into the town. I had booked a hotel via the Internet, but had no real idea where it was. I asked directions in the town centre, my first foray into German since 1991. People were very helpful. It turned out our hotel was a way out of town and I failed to fully understand their directions. We eventually stumbled upon the hotel Föhr in pouring rain at around 11pm. The restaurant was closed. The bar was still open so I had a beer. Our evening meal consisted of a packet of peanuts out of the mini-bar, some cheese and a tomato.