I enjoyed Club World service to London Heathrow! After making it through security (no TSA pre-check – boo!) and having my ankles caressed by the nice woman security guard, I made it to the British Airways Club World Lounge.
A great selection of alcohol – all “help yourself!”
Kenn was checking out the food – shrimp caesar or roasted veggie wrap, port salut cheese and other assorted snacks!
Made it onto the plane, no muss no fuss. The plane wasn’t full either, which was nice.
Champagne (and water) whilst waiting for boarding to finish …
After takeoff. Snuggled in under my blanket watching “Victoria and Abdul.” It was a great movie, timely for the trip. I would recommend! True story!
My drinkie-poo of choice on the plane was the “Chip Off the Old Block” Sauvignon Blanc 2016, W. O Darling, South Africa. Very tasty!
For dinner I had Pappardelle tossed in kale pesto with heirloom tomato and wilted baby kale. Very delicious!
I tried to sleep on the plane. After a while of not falling asleep, I watched an episode of Graham Norton. He is a hilarious talk show host – irish I believe. His guests on this particular show were Helen Mirron, Liam Neeson, and the guy who stars in those 50 Shade of Grey movies – who incidentally is from Scotland although I thought he was from the US. Talk shows in Britain are a bit looser. Odd seeing Liam Neeson say “Fuck!” on TV when asked a personal question. But I laughed out loud at quite a few bits. You can YouTube Graham Norton to see clips from the show. If you’re interested check out this link – it has Minnie Driver reciting suggested race horse names that were rejected. Hilarious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELTfS_wM74.
After that clip I did manage to sleep for about an hour. Woke up and had a mango-banana smoothie and a cup of coffee (I don’t care what the news reports say. “Potable” water is drinkable water!) And the coffee was good!
Plane landed without incident. Got off the plane. Walked quite a ways to get through Security. Another perk of Club World travel is you get a pass to get into the shorter immigration lines. I waited a little bit. Went up to the guy. He asks “what are you doing in this country?” I say, “visiting friends.” He says, “what kind of friends?” I say, “what kind of friends??” He says “yeah.” I really wasn’t sure what kind of question he was asking me. So I said, “uh, friends I met back in the 80’s when I was in Europe?” And he said okay.
Then off to find my bags. They were on the carousel waiting for me. So off to find the Club World lounge. Got there, brushed my teeth, had a little bite to eat and read the paper before setting out to find my friend Louise. I was in Terminal 5 and she was landing in Terminal 2. I had to get on the ‘Heathrow Express’ free train to get there. It was not the most straightforward thing to find, or to figure out which train to get on, but luckily there were plenty of people there to answer questions so I eventually made it over there.
Found a place to wait. Texted her using “What’s App” but unfortunately since I wasn’t on airport wifi my message didn’t go thru. I couldn’t tell that, of course. But luckily, Terminal 2 wasn’t too big so we found each other. First time seeing each in person since 1993!!
Here’s where I was waiting for her:
We wandered thru the airport and found ourselves where the buses were, and boarded our coach to head to Reading.
And, we made it!
Our friend Bill arrived at Reading Station to drive us to his house. Here is their lovely sitting room with cozy fire. We settled in, had a nice visit and a nosh. Then we went for a walk in the afternoon.
We got back, hung out. Had some snackies with some bubbly – very festive! For dinner, Anthea made a delicious fish pie (like shepherd’s pie but with fish inside rather than meat), and we enjoyed some nice rose. After dinner, port and chocolates. I will not be losing any weight on this trip!
Around 10:45p we went to bed. I managed to stay awake all day, except for about 15 minutes when I shut my eyes but was still ‘listening’ to the conversation.
Woke up this morning – I can hear a rooster crowing – and figured I’d post this while everybody is still sleeping. Today we’re going to a town whose name escapes me at the moment, and tonight is our Burns’ dinner.
But for now, I’m going to try to catch some zzz’s.
Stay tuned! More to come! Pip pip! Cheerio!