As the flight is scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow, I’d booked the Bloc Hotel actually onsite at Gatwick Airport South Terminal for tonight, right on the doorstep of the Departures hall, together with prepaid parking.

Thus it transpired that we set off at around 3 p.m. to drive the M1/M25/M23/A23 route to Gatwick. Relatively uneventful, although there was some thickish traffic here and there.

Got to the car park without too much difficulty, but finding the hotel was more difficult than it should have been. We went on a recce initially, got our bearings, returned to the car, got our bags and managed to get into our room using the hotel app – no need to bother Reception. Quite cool that one could control the blinds and lights from within the app!

Decent size, and well appointed, with a view of the doings of the airport, but very dark décor with everything being controlled by the app.

Having settled in, we went exploring for somewhere to eat – the hotel doesn’t have its own restaurant, but you are within yards of the eateries in the departure area.

Settled on a Wetherspoons – nothing more upmarket seemed to be available. Food was OK pub grub as is so often the case with these types of places. The Malbec was very decent, though…..

Back to this rather weird hotel room to settle down to what, for us, was a relatively early night.

The adventure proper starts tomorrow!