The plan today was simply to travel down to a hotel near Terminal 3 at Heathrow, stay one night and enjoy (if that’s the right word) a relatively leisurely check-in at the airport the following morning, as the flight isn’t scheduled to leave until 15.10.

Andy O’Neal, who runs Beds and Bucks Chauffeur Service, who we’ve used before, turned up in his nice Mercedes at the appointed time to take us down there. Bit of a panic getting all the last minute bits and pieces done before we closed the front door behind us, but we were soon headed down the M1 for a comfortable and uneventful ride to the Hilton Garden Inn.

Checked into a bog-standard hotel room, where the temperature was stiflingly hot. Struggled with the aircon, but more or less won the battle.

We did a dry run from the hotel to Terminal 3 so as to give us some idea about where we had to go and how long it would take. About 20 minutes was the answer. People everywhere.

Back to the hotel to sample a reasonably decent meal, but very expensive. The word ‘clipjoint’ could have been invented for this hotel, but it is well suited for the airport.

Somehow found our way up to the Runway Bar on the 14th floor, where we had a nice G&T and a great view of the Heathrow runways. Fascinating to watch scores of planes taking off and landing – makes you appreciate how complex it is running a very large airport.

Thence to bed. Quite early for us.

The adventure properly starts tomorrow when we fly to Seattle. As it’s 7 hours behind, it might be a while before I post, but you’ll just have to wait, won’t you? 😉