Is there something about me that I love the smell of aviation fuel in the morning? I love airports. Used to hang around them when I was a kid even though I wasn’t flying anywhere (both inside and outside – it was a treat to get to eat sausages and chips in the foodcourt!) and it’s transferred to adulthood.

I’ve been in every regional airport in the country save Waterford I think and there are few greater pleasures, as far as I can tell, than staggering, bleary-eyed out of an airport the size of a postage stamp in Donegal, Kerry or Sligo at 8am on a Sunday morning having not had any breakfast or any coffee and then being hit by the hum of an engine and the overwhelming whiff of aviation fuel.

There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there? 🙁

I flew out of Knock (or Ireland West Airport as they now like to be known) last Sunday morning after the dodgiest of landings the night before (is the plane really supposed to bounce back up off the runway in the rain?) Their postage stamp has been upgraded to a whole two-storey padded envelope of an experience, even offering a coffee and a yellow snack at 7.30am! The Aer Arann lady at the gate jested that we were getting the full private jet experience what with there being only 8 of us flying at that ungodly hour. Sweet.

I was so disorientated when I got back to Dublin that, coming back out of the gates, I was greeted by the usual row of limo drivers carrying signs. One said “Roy Bissoon”. I thought that was funny and almost tried to get a free ride back to the city by putting on a Canadian accent. Roy would have a Canadian accent I felt…

R(oy Bissoon-a-like)