Round The World and other travels

I arrived at Heathrow's Terminal 1 and was delighted to be able to bypass the human zoo that was the check-in area, thanks to having collected my Boarding Pass at EDI the previous evening. Check-in must have been a real bottleneck because, arriving at the security area, I was surprised and delighted to find it near-deserted. I soon found the international Diamond Club lounge and blew one of my Gold vouchers on an upgrade to Business Class, securing seat 2A in the process. The lounge was very quiet and I had some coffee and biscuits to keep me going until time for the flight. I decided to head for the gate at 0805, even though the flight hadn't been called. It turned out there was a good reason for this : it was going to be late in from MAN due to ATC delays, arriving at 0810.

Soon enough, though, I was settling into 2A, noting that cabin presentation was excellent, despite the rapid turnaround. There were three rows of Business Class and all the A, C, D and F seats were taken (i.e. all the Es left free). Altogether, it seemed like a healthy passenger load. We pushed back at 0853 and taxied to 27L for a westerly take-off run. Strangely, an SAS plane was landed on the take-off runway immediately before our turn. Wonder what that was all about   Our A319 took to the air at 0914, climbed steeply and made the required U-turn to get us going the way we wanted!

On such a short flight, the crew wasted no time in distributing the Bento Boxes, followed by a choice of Cumberland sausage or veggie panini. The box contained a cup, a glass, a plastic bottle of apple juice (the cloudy variety), cream, butter (don't know what that was for!), a sachet of ketchup, a small pot of Müller yoghurt, grey plastic cutlery, a napkin and a clean-up tissue. Although a panini and a pre-packed box might seem a strange business class offering, it was well enough presented and, in my opinion, perfectly acceptable on such a short sector. I might have a different opinion on a longer run. There was the usual choice of tea or coffee and, in a truly delightful touch, I was offered a choice of English Breakfast or Earl Grey tea - a lovely surprise for an Earl Grey fan

Breakfast was followed by a hot towels service and very soon thereafter, we were on the approach into BRU, touching down at 1055 local time. We arrived on stand at 1059, but then had one of those "will it, won't it?" experiences as the motorised jetty decided to be a prima donna. It eventually condescended to do its job, bringing a most enjoyable short journey to an end.