12^th July 2025

Our return flight with EasyJet was uneventful.

No teeny-tiny backpack size issues. No sick passengers. No taxiing backwards and forwards on the runway. And, sadly, no dual heritage fans to chat with. Shame.

The only noteworthy thing about our return trip occurred at security when in Genève-Aéroport.

As was our style – Yes! We have style! – we had called into a supermarket while at the train station to grab some breakfast items to eat later.

At the airport we necked our bottled water ahead of zig-zagging through those stretchy-taped routes on our way to security and the body and bag scanners. Because, as seasoned travellers, we know you can’t take water through security.

“Please empty pockets.” I was told by a kindly faced border officer. 

“Any liquids?” She asked, suspiciously eyeing the brown paper bag I’d recently acquired from the train station convenience store.

“Nope. We’ve just drunk our water.” I answered. “Only a pastry, a pretzel and a yoghurt in here.”

“Yoghurt?” Her kindly smile fell away. With one hand she unclipped her pepper spray.

“Yep. Chocolate with a granola pot to sprinkle on top.” I cheerily answered. “Two of them actually.” I continued.

Her other hand now rested on her sidearm. We were moving through DEFCON 3 and heading rapidly into level 4. DEFCONs 1 and 2 had been left a distant memory with my first mention of yoghurt.

“You cannot take it through.” She said, eyes narrowing like Clint Eastwood’s do in “Dirty Harry’. Well, like Clint Eastwood’s eyes do in every Clint Eastwood movie.

Go ahead, GrumpPa, make my day.

“But it’s yoghurt. Chocolatey flavour.” I reasoned not, I thought, too unreasonably. “It’s got granola bits.”

“Not allowed. You can eat it. Here.”

She was brusque now. Very commanding and officious. She had obviously passed her “Intimidate The Passengers” exams with flying colours. It seemed that Officer Harriet, the Dairy-Denialist, was not a great fan of milk-based food products.

Or chocolate.

Or granola for that matter.

Other border patrol colleagues were approaching. Doing that thing where they speak into their shirt cuffs while holding a finger to one ear as they worriedly scan faces in the crowd.

Now I’m not really that bothered how I am perceived by others, especially by strangers. After all, I had just spent a day wearing an England FA branded snood as a pirate headscarf and, for most of our Swiss trip, BantamMonkey had been hanging jauntily from my belt. Plus, when back home, I wear hats nearly all the time. And hats are not really the norm and often lead to second glances from passers-by.

However…I draw the line at stepping out of a packed security queue to munch a yoghurt while my fellow passengers, vexed and irate at me already delaying their progress, move sullenly past giving me the evils and muttering to themselves.

I do have some standards.

Plus granola can sometimes take a bit of chewing and yoghurt can often be quite “drippy down your shirt front”. At least it can for me. And I’m not risking spilling yoghurt down my England shirt for anyone. Not even for a heavily armed, visibly perturbed and – rather ironically – grumpy security official.

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

You could cut the tension with a knife. Obviously I couldn’t, I didn’t have a knife on me…if Harriet’s not letting me through with a yoghurt then I’d have no chance getting a blade past her. Suffice to say it was a very tense moment. One in which I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

Well, do ya, punk?

From several places behind me I heard a soft cry and saw a tear fall from Liam’s eye as two chocolate and granola filled pots dropped into the waste bin. Goodbye breakfast.

Panic over, Officer Harriet, the Yoghurt-Banner, relaxed. Her colleagues relaxed. Highly trained attack dogs relaxed; they stopped snarling and rolled over for a tummy tickle.

Don’t worry, Liam, I thought as Officer Harriet, the Granola-Grouch, grudgingly let me through the scanners.

You can share my pastry and pretzel.