Arrived Home!

After an 11½ hour flight we're home and in one piece with no missing or damaged luggage!

We arrived at Heathrow quite early and had to wait to check in which went smoothly once it happened. We managed to find the only bit of terminal 4 from which you can watch the planes coming and going and Joel really enjoyed that. We had some dinner before boarding and that's when our evening started to go downhill. The manager of the restaurant told us that we'd have to take our trolley out of the restaurant (though it was causing less obstruction than the pushchair) and we had a bit of an argument over this. We couldn't believe how pedantic he was being, plus we didn't want to lose the trolley, so eventually we agreed that he could take the trolley on the condition that he finds us one after our meal. To cut it short, he stored the trolley in the entrance to the restaurant which caused mayhem and resulted in them losing several customers! Pathetic really.

Our flight was 2 hours late taking off and it must be said that BA were true to form in so far as they were really pathetic and incredibly pedantic too (must have been the night for it). We were clearly struggling to board but at no point were we offered any help in boarding or at any other time, despite having several bags, 2 kids and a pushchair. Much of the night was taken up with one flight attendant after the other telling us the same thing about Eli's bassinet, when we tried to tell them that we knew, the staff became ever more persistent thinking that we were just being dismissive or beligerent. Thankfully the boys slept, Eli for 9 hours and Joel for 6. Joel got himself really hyper and we had to spend a lot of time calming him down and addressing his behaviour. That felt really harsh as we'd put him into that position, so it was not really his fault that he got so wound up. We have noticed that neither Joel nor Eli like being disrupted from their routines, especially at sleep times.

The flight was nicely rounded off by Paula having a bit of a row with the chief steward who had lied blatantly to his colleagues about Joel's sleeping arrangements (he slept on the floor which isn't allowed). Paula had had enough and the BA staff picked on the wrong person at the wrong time. Paula was calm and gracious but equally forthright which amused me and scared the BA staff! At the baggage carousel, Dean loaded our bags onto 2 trolleys (4 pieces weighing 100Kgs plus several smaller bags) whilst Paula looked after the boys, once again the BA staff offered us no help whatsoever, despite Dean struggling to control 2 trolleys at once and accidentally (honestly) crashing into some of them.

Dean has loathed BA for a few years and after our last two flights with them we do wonder why we bother subjecting ourselves to such pathetic levels of service. Hopefully we'll try another airline next time.

So we're home safe and sound, Eli looked delighted to be back in his own cot and Joel spent the day re-acquainting himself with his toys. Tomorrow all will be back to normal as Dean is off to work, Paula will do the grocery shop and meet some mums with Eli and Joel will spend the morning at Twinkle Tots. Bliss!