Round The World and other travels

I had originally been pre-assigned 4A, but when I logged onto OLCI this had been changed to 2A and I wasn't about to argue. The passenger boarding behind me was for 2C and we had only been sitting a little while when 2B turned up : it was clearly going to be a busy flight. The captain explained that the delay was caused first of all by a last-minute aircraft substitution for the flight up from LHR, but mainly by air traffic control delays. We pushed back from the stand at 1553 and just seemed to hit a busy patch for both departures and landings; accordingly it was 1609 before our A320 rotated and lifted into the grey Edinburgh skies. The seat belt sign stayed on for ages, even for the cabin crew. With all the cloud, there was no appreciable view to be had.

As the deli-boxes were distributed, I was asked "Sweet or savoury?" and replied "Savoury!" Only then did I realise that I was about to experience, for the first time, the infamous crudités that I had heard about on FlyerTalk. A few tiny sticks of carrot and what was either courgette or cucumber (probably the latter, but they were too small and bland to tell!), a little tub of mayonnaise to dip them in, a small of bag of nibbles ... and that was it   To be fair, it wasn't unpleasant : just nowhere near enough. I had a gin & bitter lemon to drown my sorrows and a cup of coffee.