To be frank, I never wanted to go in the first place.

I had joked about it raining so much that, maybe, it would all be flooded and then we couldn’t go.

We flew with Monarch to Birmingham. We arrived and had to put jackets on. It was decidedly chilly. We followed the crowd to go and reclaim our bags and then came to a grinding halt.

The ‘hall’ was fuller than full. The queue snaked back and forth on itself, as these things do now.

It took us one hour and a half to get through to our bags.

I noticed the signs on the side walls, explaining the delays. Apparently they were checking that the document you had used for the flight matched the one you were using now.

Except, like all the misinformation about security and stuff, it wasn’t that at all. It couldn’t have been! We got to the desk and I gave in my passport (which must, of course, be taken out of its holder – but only in the UK) and my colleague gave in her ID card. You can travel throughout Europe on your ID card and it was used for the flight.

“Don’t you have a passport?”, asked the surly man. It was said too fast and with a thick, brummy accent. I answered for my colleague knowing that she hadn’t understood. “No”.

I wanted to add that quite obviously, she couldn’t use her passport because you were checking with the flight and she hadn’t used the passport for the flight.

He sighed. He then proceeded to type the number into his computer. But the thing is – why? What’s the point? I mean, she’s from Italy, is Italian and wouldn’t ever want to stay in the country longer than necessary.

So there’s an excuse for the long queues which is, quite frankly, a big, big lie.

Instead, the whole experience left me with the over-riding feeling of being unwanted in the country – and it’s MY country!

Someone said that it was something to do with the Olympics – not that we were anywhere close to the Olympics. But if I had a ticket for one of the events I would now, seriously, consider selling it.

My advice: if you don’t need to go to the UK, then don’t go. Once you get there it’s not that good anyway.