Hello
It’s September 2022. Well, not right now as I type it isn’t. But the day I’m about to describe in painfully excruciating detail is Friday, 30th September 2022. We flew somewhere!
Every story starts with an unnecessarily detailed backstory
Early March 2020 was the last time I got on a plane. I had an appointment with my asthma nurse the day before and asked, there’s this virus that’s making the news, should I cancel? They said there was no guidance not to… just, y’know, be sensible, remember my inhalers and stuff. Feels bizarre looking back to think that I took a flight in such a momentous month, really. Since then we’ve bought a car, moved house, had a few trips in England - mostly masked up, staying in AirBnBs to avoid people, eating outside wherever possible etc… the fear was real, and strong, for a long time. And then in July we both got covid. It was horrible, for 12 days, and then we were better. No side effects, no after effects. Less than a week after testing negative I was running my fastest 5km of the year etc. And best of all we were filled to the brim with antibodies. To ba.com! Let’s book a flight!
Those of you who’ve read my ramblings over the year might recall that back in 2016 I got lucky with some “mistake fares” - business and first class long haul flights for significantly less than they should have cost, enabling me to earn a BA Gold Card. This entitled me (plus Helen as guest!) entry into the BA Galleries First lounge at Heathrow (and Gatwick) as well as a bunch of other benefits. Courtesy of another mistake or two I managed to retain it in 2017, and then … a baggage system failure that didn’t affect us led BA to extend it for two years by way of apology. Then covid hit and they extended it again, and again. But now, the party is over. My status runs out on October 8th 2022. So, as soon as I recovered in July I was like - I don’t care where I go, but I’m taking a flight from Heathrow before that date for one last gluttonous visit to that lounge. And that, dear reader, is how we arrive at September 30th and trip to Jersey.
Godalming to Heathrow
We don’t live in Surbiton any more, but Godalming down in the Surrey hills. It is with a feeling of being incredibly fortunate that I regularly wake up to a view like this.
Went out for a couple of runs - 5km, 1km walk, 2km run - before work. We’d booked a half day off and Friday mornings are full of meetings for me. We’d done most of our packing the night before and between meetings I whizzed around doing a bit more, plus tidying up etc. The cab was booked for 1230 and we were both finishing work at 1200.
The cab arrived at 1155. Good lord! The cab firm we used in Surbiton used to arrive early, but not as aggressively as that. Madcap dash to make sure everything that should be locked was locked, the cat was sorted out and stuff left out for the cat-sitter, and then away we went.
The driver was friendly enough, though didn’t speak to us at all once we set off. The A3 was empty, the M25 much less so. Ugh. I’d forgotten how shit the M25 is when you’re stuck in a big tailback. I spent most of the journey obsessing about how busy the Heathrow T5 lounges were, having bookmarked the secret URL that shows live capacity levels (used by the big screens in T5 itself!). The business lounges were full, the first lounge was fluctuating between “a bit full” and “really quite full”. Hmm.
There’s a big poster hanging on the bridge where the M3 goes over the M25 saying BORIS TO JAIL.
Helen’s phone had told her our flight was delayed, but I could find no evidence of this. BA never once reported it as late, neither did any sites I checked. No idea where Android got its information from. I actually kinda wanted it to be late just for extra lounge time. Mind you, we arrived at T5 at 1245 - only 15 minutes after we had expected to be picked up - so extra lounge time was happening anyway.
Heathrow T5! Yay!
Walking to “The First Wing” for maybe the last time ever 😕 we went through the boarding pass checks and joined the queue for security. The very, very static queue. Only one scanner was open, and nothing was happening. I estimate we were about 10 back, and by the time we moved at all there were a good 16-20 people behind us. One man (who looked like he considered himself extremely important) strode to the front, as if he could somehow influence things by expressing dissatisfaction. He could not.
Once things moved, it was smooth enough. I got beeped by the metal detector because I hadn’t quite remembered how airport security work, and left my belt on. D’oh. But anyway, our bags came through without being sent for secondary inspection and into the lounge we walked. Yay! Lounge!
Galleries First, for the last time
OBLIGATORY PHOTOS OF ALL THE FREE STUFF INCLUDING CHAMPAGNE OH YES.
I couldn’t decide between fish cake or pie, so I had both. On the same plate. Because I’m still classless riffraff. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The lounge was pretty crowded, but not so full as to stop us finding comfy seats near the window. Is this the first time I’ve sat near the window here? Normally I’d dive straight down to the champagne alcove at the back. Hmm. Anyway. Helen needed to do some laptoppy stuff so got on the wifi while I, uncharacteristically, started off with a beer. I regretted it almost immediately, because Brewdog Jet Stream is bland as fuck. But free beer is free so whatever.
Laptoppy stuff out of the way, champagne was next. I tried to order food to the table, because there are QR codes these days. Dunno if they were always going to introduce this or if it was done in a hurry during the pandemic, but here it is - an order-with-your-phone service.
Thing is, the “lounge menu” offered only 3 choices of food, all very unappetising. Whereas the buffet is in full pre-pandemic mode, so that’s where I filled my plate with spinach, peas, fish cakes and pie. It were all really quite nice. As was the champagne, a second glass of which came swiftly after the first.
So. There we are. Settled in to my last foreseeable visit to this lounge. Very bittersweet. I hadn’t forgotten how much I enjoy spending time there, it was always a magnificent way to start a trip off, and it was extra superb to be visiting after 2.5 years of health fear. Think I’ll have another champagne.
With extreme serendipity given the occasion, as we sat in the lounge I got a text from Barclays saying that, due to me being an early customer of both their Avios-earning bank account AND Avios-earning credit card, they are going to throw 25,000 bonus Avios in my account in October. Woohoo!
Helen had gone looking for cake, and found none. I ensured her that there was definitely cake. She insisted there was none, and that I had mistaken sandwiches for cake.
Fourth glass of champagne oh go on then. Fuck it. Very disappointed to see our flight time approach with no hint of a delay. 70 full minutes before departure time, the gate was announced. That seems remarkably early! I tried to navigate a T5 map on my phone to figure out whether we were above the gate or it was at the other end of the terminal, eventually figuring out it was the latter.
Decided against a 5th champagne because, well… two days on, I can’t remember our reasoning. Anyway. We left and walked to gate A5 and arrived much, much too early. I bought a Coke Zero from the vending machine, which was an experience in its own right. It’s one of those machines where you type in coordinates of what you want like battleships - I wanted an H6. Waved my phone at the payment mechanism and it told me, in Danish, that my payment was declined. Then it vended an item from H5 (which, mercifully, was also a Coke Zero). What?
We sat down and watched people repeatedly try and insist that they should be allowed to board already, despite literally no-one boarding (not even the elderly, infirm, or parents with children in buggies). After not too long boarding did actually start, and my card still allows us to board in Group 1.
Flying!
Yes, we got on early due to my card, not because we were in business class… because we weren’t. I’d tried, every day for 2 months pretty much, to upgrade us but it was never on offer. In fact for the last few days you couldn’t even buy business class tickets to Jersey on any flight on the day. So we sat in the “curtain envy” seats of row 4, the first row of economy.
A 1605 departure and we were in our seats by 1545. Outside it was bleak.
These short haul planes have had a minor overhaul since last we sat in one. There is at-seat power, and wifi. Fancy! But no buy-on-board food menus, and no magazines. If you want to read HighLife you have to do it on your device.
A brief IS THIS YOUR BAG trauma in our direction, as a flight attendant was unhappy with how I’d placed it in the overhead but refused to move it themselves for health and safety reasons. A kind man in row 5 shifted it around a bit for us.
Despite boarding so promptly, we were delayed for no given reason. We ended up leaving about 20 minutes late. I used the spare time to accidentally post from a twitter account I’ve left deliberately dormant since 2013. I doubt anyone noticed.
I do love a window seat. God, flying is ace. I know it’s shit for the environment and stuff, but I really love the experience.
Unlike in 2019, you do get free stuff in economy on BA short haul these days. Not like the “glory” days of before: what we got was a tiny bottle of water and a packet of crisps. They did announce that we’d be able to order some buy-on-board stuff too, but in actuality that never happened. No hint of it.
I continued to enjoy the view out of the window. No, scratch that. I continued to bemoan the fact we were flying through cloud for the entire flight until the descent.
We’d both expected a pretty bumpy descent, as the forecast for Jersey was for horrific wind and rain. But in reality it was pretty bloody smooth, not unpleasant. There were glimpses of land as we came down, and Helen took my pad to write in capital letters
JERSEY HORSE OF THE YEAR (Remind me to tell you about this!)
Before she’d written the bracketed bit I said out loud “JERSEY HORSE OF THE YEAR?”, much to her horror. Apparently the woman in front of us, with all the business class champagne and scones and other jealousy inducing stuff, had been booking her horse nutritionist appointment. Really.
And then, we were in Jersey. Hooray!
Jersey
Helen, naturally, was desperate for a vape. It was indeed blowing a gale and pissing down. We took cover in an outdoor smoking area and I admired the old aircraft hangar opposite.
The cab rank was just 10 metres away, and a friendly man with what I perceived to be a Mansfield accent took us to St Brelade’s Bay and the Golden Sands Hotel. He was very friendly and full of advice for things to do, and only once got distracted enough to veer into the opposite lane and almost get hit by oncoming traffic.
We got texts from our mobile networks about roaming fees. Hang on, this is Jersey. It’s not foreign. Why are EE charging Helen £2/day for being here!?
At reception we were checked in quickly enough, and also booked a table for dinner in an hour, at 1845 or so. Upstairs we unpacked, got further confused by not all the plugs being UK three-pin things but pleasantly surprised at how huge our room is. I’m obviously impressed by the giant TV as well.
With an hour to kill, before dinner and also of remaining daylight, we walked round to the beach. The hotel is directly on the seafront in the centre of St Brelade’s Bay, in quite a spectacular setting. With the rain and wind it was all lovely and bleak.
You can see how windy it is from Helen’s hair, and the fact that I needed the hood up to stop my hat from going flying. Bracing!
Also these aren’t supposed to be quite so sideways.
There are a bunch of other hotels here, some closed shops, and lots of places to eat. Pizza Express, a crab shack, an oyster house, as well as all the “open to non-residents” hotel restaurants. Looks like a great place. Anyway, let’s go back to Golden Sands and have dinner. I’ll have fish and chips please; cheese soufflé for Helen. And d’you know what, yes, I do just about have space for the giant strawberry and honeycomb trifle.
EVERYTHING was delicious. Some of the best fish I’ve ever had - really incredibly light and so tasty. And generous portions all round. For liquids Helen had a cocktail which, I’m told, was also gorgeous; I had a very nice local pale ale. Followed by another, and another.
As time went on, all the gluttony and booze took its toll on our alertness. We put the drinks on our room, taking a glass of wine, a beer, and a can of diet coke to the room. Managed to stay awake long enough to finish the booze, sitting on the incongruous indoor rattan furniture with Gogglebox on the TV. Conversations were had with our neighbours, to plan a birthday pub crawl in December, and with Ed who’s running the London Marathon literally as I type this sentence. He introduced me to the word “maranoia”, which has set in in the lead up to the race - scared of every twinge and muscle feeling etc. Emergency physio visit was required. I’m tracking him live though and he’s going great right now.
Anyway, Friday finished with no alarms set, of course, but I put my running kit to the side so that I could try my best to get dressed and leave without waking Helen. I had an appointment with Jersey Parkrun in the morning, intending to be out of the door by 8am. After a skinful and a load of food. What could possibly go wrong?