Transitions and remembering old friends
31.03.2011
Day 56, 25 March 2011
YEP, I STILL LOVE LONDON
We landed at Hethrow at about 5am, rushed through to immigration, grabbed our bags and got out asap. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us into the arrivals lounge so we set up in a coffee shop to sort ourselves out. We got in touch with my friend Mel and C’s friend Ewan and rearranged our bags to be able to leave most of the stuff at the left luggage counter (C- luggage storage rates are extortionate)..
We made our way into town, jumping off at Piccadilly Circus and meandering through Covent Garden, along the Strand past St Pauls to Bank station. It was a cold but beautiful blue sky morning and it bought back every good memory I had of the place.
We met Mel in Clapham at 10 and had a great long catch up. She is going well with her pregnancy and is absolutely glowing. We made our way up to Holburn and met Ewan – for a beer, then headed back to Covent Garden to the outdoor gear shops. After much consternation we located what we needed and by about 4pm headed back toward the airport. 
Terminal 5 at hethrow is phenomenal, we dumped our bags, then bustled through security and did a bit of duty free shopping with our last pounds. After locating the lounge we had showers and tried to get ready for our next part of the adventure.
We only just realized that it was time to go at 8:55 to make it to the gate for our 9:25 flight. We sprinted down through to the monorail transport, up two long flights of escaladers and along the concourse to be told that we weren’t the last ones! (C- surprisingly our fitness is still ok when adrenalin is involved)
We squashed onto our flight (I swear that BA seats are smaller than any others we’ve been on) and settled in for the long haul.
