Sun - 17/09/23

 Sunday 17 September 2023

Weather

UK weather was drizzle.

After yesterday’s turmoil I was well behind with my packing. However, I I completed this by 10:00am. The suitcase felt heavy. It weighed 21 kgs.

As a reminder, the issue yesterday was my cancelled flight to Bologna. I needed to rebook because the alternative flight would have got me to Pescara two days late. I found a flight to Rome and called BA Customer Services. The guy put me on that flight to Rome. It leaves at 06:30 tomorrow morning, so 90 minutes earlier than the cancelled Bologna flight. I will have to get up very early tomorrow morning. I was able to check in for my outbound flight this morning. I am in seat 25C. NB. I also had to print off some new luggage labels for the outbound flight. With regard to my flight, I have one document which shows bag drop opening at 04:30 and another which says 05:00. I must clear security before 05:55 so I shall aim to get to T5 for 05:00. I need to update various documents, including the nutshell, to reflect the new flight details.

I packed some Scotch Eggs, two sausages and some cold roast pork. However, I wasn’t very hungry and I ended up throwing a scotch egg and the pork into a bin.

So, I got a taxi to the Kingsway. The wait time was 15 minutes, the driver was good. It was drizzling so this was not a great start. Then, my National Express coach was 50 minutes late to arrive from Cardiff. It was one hour late into Heathrow and the service terminated at the Central Bus Station. I got the Elizabeth Line Line to Terminal 4. I checked in to my hotel and went to the bar to meet Keith. I booked a table at the Urban Brasserie for 19:30.

I drank alcohol with Keith, that was probably not a good idea. I got very little sleep as I had to set my alarms for 03:30.

The food was OK, I had cauliflower soup with a roll then sea bream with a piquant bed of vegetables. Back at the hotel bar I had two cocktails.