loquitohermoso

Yes, yes, I know, Greta won’t be impressed. But come on, winter these days is especially bleak, with the combination of wall-to-wall rain and none of the things that make winter fun like, dare I mention it, snow?

Ironically however, the February week that preceded our escape was one of the best for a while, lovely clear sunshine and more than a hint of expanding daylight. Birds tweeting, bulbs emerging, the full early spring ticket.

Thankfully however, the drive to the train station confirmed that winter was very much still here, with a couple of utterly bleak waits on cold rainy platforms along the way. I was quietly confident about my “no warm clothes” strategy, but slightly less so about my ‘no rain jacket’ decision as I got blasted with sideways rain on the charming Hayes and Harlington platform which always seems like a bit of an afterthought on the otherwise brilliant Elizabeth Line transfer to LHR.

We arrived at Heathrow in good time. Actually far too good time, a decent 5hrs before the 8pm flight. But when you travel in from the boonies you have to have contingency time. This is why sometimes, getting the sparrow crack early flights are an idea, at least you can hole up in a hotel beforehand and just rock up whenever the night before.

This time though, we chose to while the time away by booking an airport lounge. In these days of airline cost cutting, these are pretty much the holy Grail of Travel and actually you don’t really get access to anything decent but yeah, unless you get a business class ticket or, as we went last year, a PE ticket masqerading as business (like SAS), your options are to pay, to pay or… to pay and actually the lounge you get access to is nothing on the business class lounges-but we thought we’d give it a go.

38 quid each and to be fair my scepticism was entirely well-founded. You’re allowed to enter them three hours before your flight departure time…like actual wheels off the ground time- so realistically you get 2 1/2 hours if you’re really brave in the airport lounge, dependent on how far it is you have to run to the gate.

Now I’m someone who’s very nervous on long-haul travel about missing things and invariably if there’s a sign that says “go to gate” I’ll just go to the gate, whereas realistically you can pretty much wait until “last call” or even “Mr. Donati get on that bloody plane now” announcements. We turned up at the Number One lounge to a somewhat depressing queue of people entering.

This was not in any way a good omen. As we reached the head of the queue, we were told that there was no more at the Inn, and the lounge was full. We were instead redirected to another lounge which incidentally was less cheaper than the one we’d paid for, however they sort to soothe their nerves with a complimentary glass of domestic champagne.

This was remotely compensation, and actually, was the lounge worth 38 quid? Absolutely not. It consisted of more comfortable seating and probably slightly calmer surroundings than sitting in the terminal-T3 is a little bit of a zoo given how compact it is with everyone huddling in the centre ringed by shops that you don’t fancy anyway.

Food options in the lounge were decidedly mediocre, dessert options flapjack or flapjack… and realistically there’s only so much beer you can get down your neck within the time allotted, in my case was not very much. It doesn’t help that you have to order them a thimble at a time from the sad lady behind the bar. Maybe she wanted to work at No1 Lounge but was downgraded.

The flight itself was fairly decent, we were on Skippy Force One, QF002 London to Sydney, with a refuelling/leg stretch stop in Singapore aboard the A380. This had cost us around £950 return each, booked well in advance. For peak Thai holiday season straight to Phuket, including exit row seats, it wasn’t a bad shout, the next cheapest options included such delights as a 3 stop 40hr tour of southern Chinese airports on one of their domestic carriers…hell no.

Qantas seems a pretty solid option. I had the feeling that service was pared back a little due to a full flight and/or short staffing…no drink and a hot towel, this was straight into dinner. And don’t even think about asking for another drink!

For a cattle class night flight, I slept remarkably well for a few interludes, and in the wee small hours managed to find the stairs at the back…disappointingly gated at the top to prevent me doing laps of the plane. It never ceases to amaze me what my toddler brain is fascinated with.

We arrived into Singapore bang on time, and had a couple of hours to kill until our Jetstar connection to Phuket. I love Changi airport, every time I pass through there’s something new and un-airporty to find. This time…

I also finally found the on airport pool, and was briefly sad that I hadn’t brought my swimming trunks, until I saw that the pool was £25 a swim…nah.

Unfortunately all of this childlike amusement at Changi (oooh, another robot!) nearly came at a cost as our 3hr layover suddenly got a bit tight. Intra-Asian flights now go from relatively new T4. In very un-Singaporean fashion, the only connection is a bus from one of the gates which goes every 20 minutes, via all the other terminals.

Thankfully however we got over there in plenty of time to NOT buy a £14 pint of Tiger from the airport bar. I had to settle for a couple of £7 coffees instead.

Oh, Singapore.