what I did on my holidays

Mostly wait in queues, actually.

Mental notes for next time:
1. it takes 2 hours to reach Heathrow via tube when travelling in peakhour.
2. it takes at least an hour to get through check-in, if you're not flying business class.
3. fly business class if at all possible.
4. if you can't fly business class, arrive 4 hours early at London Heathrow airport.

I think that previous times I went through London Heathrow I was a little over-ready - I arrived at the airports about 4 hours early and was checked in super-fast. Really, I think that to have been checked in by 8pm (my flight leaves at 10pm), I should have had to have left central London by 4pm.

No window seat this time, I'm afraid.

Ooh! Queue is moving! I've shifted from the first (prelim) queue to the second!

Although we've still got this one to go through.

[an hour later]

There were issues with my ticket. It nearly didn't exist. Or it existed in a kind of bureucratic no-man's land, between e-ticket and paper, accepted by neither. The ticketing agent had to go out the back twice.

*sigh*

But now I'm sitting in the waiting area of London's Heathrow airport, having just been hit in the head by a kid who stretched out his arms without looking where he was stretching (!!!?!), slightly hungry since lunch (with sleekuk) was 8 hours ago. But we do get fed on the plane.

*breathes*

It took me over 3 hours from central london by bus and tube, through check-in and security to the waiting area in Heathrow.

Boarding starts in 10 minutes.

I'm going HOME!