Round The World and other travels

Before I left home, this flight had been showing a 40-minute delay on ba.com. This had subsequently been whittled down to zero, then it crept up to 5 minutes again while I was in the lounge. But I reckoned I could cope with a 5-minute delay, given the day's relaxed schedule. We were called for boarding at 1320. The flight proved to be another busy one, again with more than the usual amount of families. There was a bit of screaming immediately after boarding, but it thankfully subsided (or was blanked out) at take-off. Push-back was at 1335 and with very strong (and chilly!) westerly winds, it was no surprise at all that we used the westerly runway, becoming airborne at 1345.

Service on this flight consisted of a Deli Box, which contained a small carton of mineral water, two egg sandwiches and a Nestlé's Breakaway chocolate biscuit. There was also, of course, a beverage service and I restrained myself to having a diet coke. We started our descent just north-east of Birmingham at exactly 1415 and the Captain estimated that we had 20 minutes to run, which I thought sounded optimistic. However, with no holding at all, it proved to be spot on.