'Birdy' invited 'Sunshine' and 'Egg-Nogg' to visit Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland for 1 day, without knowing the adventures we would all get into it. We all left Reading to Stanstead airport via central London which at lunch time was packed. It took us approx 3 hours to get to our destination. On the road, Marion called us and we book a taxi in Knock for 6:20pm that evening, hoping that we all would have enought time to land. Once at Stanstead we were unsure of which car park to take. While luck trickes we took Red parking. Birdy said that letter 'T' would be for Terminal so that we all could remember it on our return from Ireland. Our adventure had only now started. The next few hours/day would be a challenge to take on board to each one of us! Once inside of the airport we realized that no check in was possible as check-in fees had not been paid or even better no one did told us that the check-in needed to be done via the internet up to 4 hours before departure - GRRRRR, the charge was 20 pounds per person, making it a total of an enexpected 60 pounds. Getting however the message across to the check-in person was one more challenge. She insisted that the check-in needed to be done in the stand by machines in the middle of the hall. It was necessry the information to be said 3 times for her to indicate another queue to be in. Once again, we were challenged to do our check-in in the stand machines. In our minds was the question: "is everyone stupid around here? or manybe we are speaking in Chinese?" Finally we were in a queue to pay. This was done and 30mins later we were trying once again to make our check-in, which this time was successful! :) Then it was time to pass security. Another one.. Birdie had bought products which too much volume and they were needed to be left behind. Birdy however would need to by some more as Egg-Nogg had brought none with her. And so we went to Boots to find something.. Then, we were to the pub to have some lunch. Ahhh... what happen? we were now speaking Japonese as dispire Birdy order a jacket potato with sweetcorn and tuna for Egg-Nogg, what was delivered to our table was sea food. LOL will this ever end?? Wait to read more... We did finally were able to seat inteh aircraft where there was no seat allocation. We found a row of three, Egg-Nogg had her window seat and Sunshine the aile one. Birdy was to be left in the middle of us, hoping not to fell a sleep to neither side ;) 
The plane arrived to the small airport of Knock 10 mins before schedule and we needed to wait 35 mins for the taxi while 
we appreciated the most beautiful sunset in the car park. While the ball of fire was coming down on us, we were able to see where exactly we landed - Knock, a small airport in the middle of a field. 
However Egg-Nogg was informed that in winter there are as much of 9 planes arrivals and in summer approx 15 planes - WOW!!! Eventually when the taxi arrived, we took a 45 minutes drive to the Days Hotel which costed us 40 Euro. We checked in and come down for a evening meal. The ladies hoping for something light. We had a delicious butternut squash soup complement of the Head Chef and we leaved there it was already 9pm all of us tired of such a long trip. The next day was the first day of Spring (Friday 20th March 2009), 
Egg-Nogg woke up earlier and went for a walk, 
surprising in front of the Hotel it is the Castlebar graveyard and also a rememberance of the war where a lot of people perished and their names are remembered in here too. The walk took Egg-Nogg for a beautiful lake where nature and swans were in liberty and fun was in the air
Return to the hotel, breakfast was taken and check-out was made. We walk towards the tenis court where our meeting would take place. On the way we met an employee who idnetify us from VzB - WOW we are the town talk ;) We have finally reached our destination at 9:14am (1 minute before our meeting was due to start). The meeting was positive, we met those that Egg-Nogg works close by and at 3:30pm we would take our taxi back to the airport which this time we were charged 70 Euro as a 'normal' tariff. At knock airport we were once again not only charged for 20 Euro per eprson as the check in was impossible once more to be done on the internet. However the most rare ever charged in a airport was their DEVELOPMENT charge of 10 Euro per person before be able to cross to the hall where the aircraft was waiting for us. In total of extra expensives, it will lead us all to believe that flying to Knock and with Ryanair it won't be an experience we would like to undertake again, unless we are all very rich. Arrival at Stanstead airport where each one of us seat separate as no reservations once more and plan was quiet full. And another beautiful sunset above the clouds this time.
We got ready to the car park, the car park machine wanted to charge us 50 odd paounds for a ticket Birdy had already pre-paid. Luckly there was a Customer Services and the ticket was sorted quickly after prove of payment be showed by Birdy. We left the car park and Birdy quickly drove down the M11, M25 and M4 to be able to reach Reading as quickly as possible.
The bad news were, however not finish as Sunshine's granny passed a way and he received a phone call on the way down.
We all arrived safely home after an experience which we all shall remember for many days to come in our lives ;)
