Back in the UK

We are back in the UK together. Last time we were here was 2010 (transiting through Heathrow Airport a few years back doesn't count!). Helen has been here to visit her Mum but that was by herself.

Helen and I flew separately to Los Angeles. Kind of two stories. Helen's travel was quite cruisy. She has Koru membership so used the Wellington lounge, flew to Auckland, used the Koru lounge, then flew to Los Angeles where she then used the Star Alliance lounge. Mine was less exciting. My Wellington flight was delayed over an hour. There were 21 people on the plane catching the same flight to Los Angeles as me, so Air New Zealand were holding the flight for us, we were told to "go direct to the plane, no dilly-dallying in duty free". I walked really fast to the international terminal, beating the shuttle bus, and was fast-tracked through security. By now it was nearly 10pm and I was starving, so I stopped at Burger King for a quick takeaway burger order. While waiting for it to be made, a call came over the loudspeaker for 5 remaining passengers not yet accounted for *blush*. Once I got the burger, I ran to the gate. I needn't have worried, there was still a long queue to get on the plane. I ate my burger while waiting in line.

Once I arrived in Los Angeles, it took over an hour to reach Helen in the lounge, by which time we only had a short time until needing to go back to our plane again. The next flight was less eventful and I was kindly offered a seat in the back row where I had more room. Very nice of the crew to offer me that! I was seated with a strange man who had a real aversion to germs, he wore a breathing mask, and goggles, and even gloves. At one point I sneezed and although I covered my mouth, and he had all the apparatus on, he freaked out and tried to get away from me even though there was a spare seat in-between us. I didn't know whether to laugh, or feel sorry for him.

Upon arrival in Heathrow, we cleared immigration and then had to wait outside for a shuttle bus to the car rental. It was very cold and having just come from the long New Zealand summer we've had, a bit of a shock. I put my winter woolies on to keep warm.

Once we got the rental car, we had a 3 hour drive to Norwich. The traffic was very good, having left Heathrow early afternoon, and we made good time. The drive is mostly dual carriageway, and speed limit between 60 and 70 mph,. We found Gwen's place easily enough, as Helen has been here before. We went for an early dinner about 5pm so we could have an early night, being two whole days since proper bed sleep.

Helen wanted KFC and we went there to find it was closed. To cut a long story short, KFC have had major supply problems in the UK over the last 6-8 weeks, and many stores (including Gwen's local) have no chicken. KFC - big fail - you have one job to to!!!! Read more about this fiasco here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/24/people-have-gone-chicken-crazy-what-the-kfc-crisis-means-for-the-brand

So next best around the corner was McDonalds, quick and easy. Tasted pretty much like New Zealand McDonalds, more so then I remember from previous UK visits.

We retreated to bed about 6pm UK time, and apart from 1-2 hours awake in the small hours we got a good nights sleep and awoke well refreshed.