Round The World and other travels

Once again, I was one of the first people on board, and certainly the first on the upper deck of the 747-400. I settled into my selected seat, 63K, and was offered a pre-departure drink. I decided to have Champagne - well, why not? Despite the extra searches at the gate, boarding seemed to be completed remarkably quickly. One of my fellow passengers asked a member of the cabin crew if we were expecting a full flight and I was astonished to hear her reply that this was it ... just 10 people out of a possible 20 upstairs! The Club World menus were distributed and, as my Champagne was topped up, I couldn't help noticing that, despite what it said in the menu, it was the dreaded Monopole   Actually, it was reasonably OK - I am becoming slightly worried by my growing acceptance of this brand, which I disliked so much when it first made its appearance.

At around the scheduled departure time, the Captain explained that we would have to remain on the ground until security clearance was obtained from the USA. He did say, however, that this had happened relatively quickly in the last few days. Sure enough, we were able to push back at 1315 and it was a very short taxi to 27L. As we finally rotated after a lengthy roll down the runway, at 1337 to be precise, I got a good look at the latest state of the new Terminal 5, before gasping with surprise at the remarkably quiet M25! I set my watch back by 6 hours and was duly appalled that I was meant to get used to the idea that it was before 8 in the morning! Just as I thought that they had maybe been banned in the current security climate, the Club World amenity kits were distributed - the first two, including mine, were in unusual grey cases, rather than the normal black.

It was soon time for more drinkies and I decided to stick with the Monopole for now, supplemented by a glass of still water with ice. The drinks were served with the usual little packet of cashew nuts. The menu was as follows :-

I had the very enjoyable prawn starter, followed by the salad, then the beef as my main course - and rather nice it was too. I then had the cheese and oatcakes. I stuck with the Champagne for the starter, but switched to the Merlot for my main course and cheese. I finished off with a cup of blackcurrant tea. As I was eating, we had been crossing familiar territory - the English Lake District, then passing west of Glasgow, then overflying Fort William, Skye and Harris.

When the main movie cycle started on the In-Flight Entertainment system, I somehow couldn't find my chosen movie, Mission Impossible III. However I did find something enjoyable : having missed it completely on TV, I caught two episodes of the latest series of Doctor Who. What a long way it's come since my childhood. (I still remember William Hartnell in the starring role ) I couldn't help noticing that the Raid the Larder display was far better than I ever recall seeing it before. In the past, it has sometimes been little more than a token gesture, but not today!

I managed to write up some of my diary using my laptop's battery power only. With the current hand-luggage restrictions, I couldn't manage anything other than the machine itself. Even my camera was relegated to the hold, which means none of my trademark food pics   When I was done with my laptop, I snoozed for an hour or so.

With around two hours still to run, the cabin crew distributed soft drinks and shortly thereafter we had a hot towels service followed by afternoon tea. The sandwiches seemed quite substantial - could it be that I was just full already? - but I managed them and the very nice heated fruit scone. I didn't attempt the choux bun. I had two cups of black tea to wash it all down. Then it was simply a case of messing around with the IFE games for a bit while we completed the journey. The flight had been really smooth all the way across the Atlantic, but we hit a couple of bumpy patches over the North American continent. I noticed that, with just 40 minutes left, we had risen to 38,000 ft.