WE were over in the UK for a fortnight straddling half term in February. My over-riding impression is that had we a couple of thousand pounds lying idle, it would be prudent to invest it in tyre manufacturers.

I could not believe the state of the roads, not just in Hertfordshire but in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. Some of the potholes were on significant roads without speeding restrictions.

The powers that be would not leave a pothole on a motorway without attending quickly to fill it, because it would be dangerous. What is the difference between a pothole there, where cars are travelling around 70mph and a road where the maximum is 60? They are still dangerous, potentially lethal.

Had I a car with low profile tyres I would put it in the garage and asked Ellie to hide the key and to refuse to surrender it even under the considerable duress of my playing Jackie Wilson’s greatest hits loudly in her ear.

While I suspect she would be more likely to tolerate a hot-lead enema without cracking, it was nice to fly back to Beziers and discover there was no need to slow at the sight of shadows in the road as we worked our way over the mountains to St Amans-Soult and our home.

Yes, we caught the dreaded Ryan Air, whose unfriendly attitudes have been featured in this column and many others for some of their ridiculous charges, such as a credit card charge for each passenger, even if you book a party of five at the same time and pay with one transaction.

The Irish song group who sing Cheap Flights on You Tube have got it right when, after landing they imagined being stuck in the plane, high off the tarmac, because they have not paid for the steps.

Well it seems Ryan Air has launched a charm offensive, inaugurated in October. Your baggage allowance can be spread over two or three passengers so, as was the case at Luton, my bag was slightly over the 15kg limit and Ellie’s was slightly under but that was OK. I did not have to contact my bank manager and negotiate a small loan to pay for excess baggage or resort to throwing out a couple of books or a large black pudding to meet the weight limit.

Those who do not need to use Ryan Air may find it hard to comprehend, but be thankful. The normally patient queues at the check-in are filled with anxious souls, many nipping off to a vacant check-in and weighing the luggage, long before it is their turn to show on-line boarding pass and passports.

My mention of a black pudding is pertinent. With one of our daughter’s scales, we determined that our bags were perilously close to the limit and the bank manager should be alerted. Rising at 4.00am for the 7.00am flight back from Luton, I discovered Ellie had weighed the cases without including a half a yard of black pudding in our daughter’s freezer.

To my chagrin I had left that in a friend’s freezer shortly before Christmas and I was not going to leave without it this time, despite Ellie telling me it took my baggage way over the top.

It transpired our daughter Lucie’s scales are the cautious side of understated. We sailed through the travellers’ weighing equivalent of Beechers Brook, and then with our 10kg hand-luggage allowance, we passed that as well.

In the past, Ryan Air would insist on ladies putting handbags inside the carry-on luggage, so reducing the weight and size of the goods you could include, as your bag was then weighed with the handbag. Now you are allowed a handbag as well, as a result of this charm offensive.

It is progress but given the firm’s constant badgering for you to invest in their holiday insurance, with a succession of reminders, I would be more impressed as to their customer-friendly intent, if they stopped moving the “no insurance” in the drop-down menu.

It should be at the top or bottom of the drop-down menu, but in fact moves around. This is not an accurate description but it does provide an indication. On booking, you turn to the drop-down menu and you might find “No insurance needed” above Norway or the next time, “Insurance not needed” below Iceland, etc. The words change and they are hidden among the drop-down list of countries, presumably in the hope frustrated customers will opt to pay for insurance rather than keep searching.

Last October, I arrived in Calais in my car at mid-day on a Sunday morning without my black pudding, and decided to see how the 650 mile journey unfolded. I could stay overnight at a hotel or friends in Limousin, but I pressed on and was unpacking the car nine hours later.

The next morning I awoke and decided, at 72, I would not undertake such a journey again without an overnight stay, and that there is no fool like an old fool. Ellie, who has become less than enthusiastic about long car journeys before and after replacement of her extremely painful hip, enjoyed the ease of flying, along with the immediacy of it all.

Ryan Air’s slightly improved approach plus only a modest car park charge of 59 euros for leaving the car 15 yards from Beziers terminal for 15 days, did go some way to persuading me that she is right.

However, when I collected the three overjoyed dogs and parted with nine 50 euro notes for the discounted housing of the dogs, I was reminded we could drive to Blighty and back, taking a ferry and pay for two of our three dogs as passengers, for much the same price. The cost of overnight stops is balanced by hire car prices when we fly.

So the jury is still out in my book but between you and me, I reckon I’ll be persuaded to fly at Christmas.