Despite having the sore throat from hell (laryngitis) and barely having slept in the last 36 hours, I feel duty bound to at least start to document this latest episode from the November 2026 run across the water.
Following on from the seat debacle, I checked in for our flights online, and the correct seats were allocated, along with a note that DW was listed as having a "non-visible disability", which I think was how the booking agent justified giving us the seats that she did. So that was a good start.
What wasn't a good start was me having caught Charlie's Laryngitis the day before we travelled, and I was feeling dog-rough on the morning of our flights. Still, there's nothing like popping a couple of Tylenol Extra-Strength and driving for hours to put a little bit if sickness to the back of my mind.
*This was as far as I could manage for that Friday night, the remainder of this post was written on the Saturday and the Sunday that followed
We had decided to do the country run from Chatham to St. Thomas to avoid the construction on Highway 401. It's a lovely drive up Highway 3, but it does take longer. Add in the fact that two of the roads north of St Thomas that I had intended to use to get to the 401 were closed for construction and what should have been an eighty-minute drive took two hours. Not that we were in a hurry, but we may have been better braving the road works. On the subject of road works, Ontario is the worst place for closed roads. I understand that work has to be carried out, but there's never any advanced warning, so you're driving along and all of a sudden there are barriers across the road, and very often no diversion route shown. Given the grid system of roads in these parts, there's always an alternative, but how hard would it be for those responsible to put a sign up maybe a kilometre or two ahead of the closure?
Back onto the manic Highway 401, we made good time with only the intersection of Highway 6 at Guelph slowing things down. Coming through Milton we'd already decided to avoid the mess on the 401 south of the airport and to use the toll road, Highway 407, and go north of the airport. It's a little further but the 407 at least keeps moving. Google Maps Directions didn't like the fact I used Airport Road to get to the airport itself and not the 427, but it was all good as we rolled into the valet parking lot at Toronto's Park 'N' Fly facility. I may use that northerly route again, even though it'll cost me a few dollars; I don't know how much the toll road was this time, and the bill won't arrive for months.
The bag drop at the airport was easy, as was security, and in no time at all we were sat in the departures area with three hours to kill. We've taken to bringing our own snacks because the price markup out at the gates is criminal. DW divined that a pre-made sandwich was going for $12.99, which is scandalous, and double the rip-off price you'd pay for the same thing in a local supermarket. I feel a strongly-worded letter coming on.
We had to move away from our first sitting place at Gate 33 because the piped music there was just hideous, and just too loud to ignore. But we found a quieter spot, and idled the time away with our own sandwiches and trenchant observations of our fellow travellers. We have found ourselves getting to the airport earlier each time recently, but with the unreliability of the road system between home and the airport, it's better to be three hours early than to be ten minutes late when there are flights involved.
While we were waiting to be boarded, there were calls for people to check their carry-on baggage into the aircraft's hold, and because as all the seats were sold, room in the overhead bins was going to be limited. If you volunteered to have your bags checked then it was free, if the airline forced you to do it because your bag was bigger than formally allowed then it would cost you $75. That made me scrutinise other people's bags, and boy do people push that carry-on size limit to breaking point on these longer flights? DW was worried about the size of her bag, but it was half the size of most of the others being taken onto the aircraft, and sometimes people had two big carry-on items. The European low-cost arlines are really strict about carry-on bag sizes, but on the full-service airlines, they don't seem to worry as much.
Our seats on the aircraft, a brand new Boeing 787, were good because we had no one in front of us and therefore had lots of room to spread out in. We had a little overhead bin just above us which fitted our two bags perfectly, so with them stowed we settled in for the flight. The aircraft was pushed back from the gate dead on time, and it fairly dashed out to the north side of the airport for a take off to the west. We must have been heavily loaded because it was a long thrash down the runway before we left the ground, but once up in the air, everything was smooth and relatively quiet. Then it was time to settle in for the six hour, overnight flight.
For this trip I'd decided to use my Android tablet instead of the aircraft's own entertainment system, but my previously downloaded episodes of Fingersmith had disappeared from the Britbox app, something to do with time limits on dowloaded content, so I decided to fire up a film from my own archive which isn't time limited. No sooner had the titles started to roll, then the dinner arrived. Putting the tablet away, I opted for the salmon and rice meal, and was as disappointed as usual with the whole thing. I wasn't really hungry anyway, I don't normally eat at 11pm, and I wasn't feeling brilliant either, so maybe I should have just given the whole supper thing a miss. Once that had all been cleared away, I gave up on the film and chose to listen to an audio book in the hope that I might drop off to sleep with someone talking quietly into my ears. For the first time ever I deployed not only the British Airways blanket, it was quite cold, but I reclined my seat a bit, both things that I don't normally do. I did sleep a bit, though, judging by how many chapters of my book I missed, but grabbing no more more than an hour or two of sleep in the previous twenty, I knew I was going to be wrecked by the time we made our final destination.
The cabin was unceremonially woken by the crew switching all the lights on about an hour before landing, and "breakfast" was served. I declined because I knew that the "egg and bacon" roll that was offered was little more than a bit of pastry with some pulverised egg and bacon inside. Anyway, I wasn't feeling any better.
We were denied nice views of London as the aircraft only popped out of the clouds a few hundred feet from the ground, although I'm greatful that modern technology allows aircraft to land in such conditions. We taxied over to Terminal 5 and given the gate furthest from the terminal, which was a result of arriving ahead of schedule, although it was something that allowed us to stretch our legs as we walked to the little shuttle train that would whisk us to the arrivals area. Unfortunately the shuttle train had a bit of an issue and it was while before we were whisked anywhere, but being on holiday meant that time really wasn't an issue.
We used the E-Gates to get through immigration, a handy automated system that speeds up the entry process if you have all the right paperwork, which we did. I wasn't too impressed with the lady prowling up and down barking orders as to how to use the e-gates, especially as it didn't look like anyone was struggling, but we were through in a very short time and on our way to the baggage reclaim area. The T5 baggage reclaim is massive, and each carousel is massive, too. Even with loads of people milling around it didn't seem that busy, and it was all in sharp contrast to the chaos of baggage reclaim at Toronto's Pearson airport. As ever, our bags seemed to be among the last off, but they were probably first to be loaded on the aircraft, so that was to be expected.
Then it was over to the Sixt Car Rental desk in the lobby of the Sofitel Hotel. I'd pre-booked of course, and told the agent I didn't want to pay more than the quoted sum on my reservation paperwork, but with some jiggery-pokery on the Sixt mobile app, he still secured us an "upgrade" at no extra cost. We had a little confusion as to the correct key for the car at the pickup point, but the ever helpful Sixt staff sorted it all out, and we found our black Peugeot 3008 Hybrid SUV. I'll do a seperate post about the car, but suffice it to say it's not a car that I would choose to buy.
The run westwards to Devon was uneventful, thankfully, despite the mess on London's orbital motorway, the M25. I'd opted to use the M4 and the M5, which is not the most direct route, but it is motorway right down to Exeter, and there are regularly placed service stations along the route, essential when you've flown overnight. I didn't start feeling the effects of the almost sleepless night until nearly at Exeter, and when diving off the motorway towards Newton Abbot and the big Tesco there, the change of driving pattern certainly banished any sleepiness I may have felt.
The first stop in Tesco was to get some credit for my UK cell phone, which in turn allowed us to use the Tesco loyalty card, which took a hefty chunk off the supplies shopping bill. When we visit any UK grocery store, we're reminded just how lucky we are in sleepy Ontario to have so many shops spread among so few people. Every grocery store in England seems to be permanently busy, in a way that Ontario stores never are, and in my sleep-deprived state I wasn't coping too well with the crush. Still, we only forgot a few things, and I pleased myself greatly by remembering the route through Newton Abbot and up to our home for the next three weeks near Ashburton. I was reminded then of how narrow and twisty UK roads can be, especially when heading out into the countryside. The section of road from the A38 to the cottage is, for large sections, effectively only wide enough for one car at a time, and is bounded by tall hedges on each side. We didn't have to back up this time, but we will at some point on this trip.
Then we were at Orchard Cottage again, our little bolt-hole on the edge of Dartmoor, where we'd stayed just nine months before. Having done the essentials, like unpack and have a drink, I fell into bed and slept, instantly, the effects of the lack of sleep and the sickness just knocked me out. But our multi-modal, self-booked, travel plans had all fitted together again, so maybe I was just relieved to have completed the outward leg.
