Tues March 15th

The big day has arrived at last. After a month of procrastination I was on my way, albeit a slightly truncated version of my original trip.

Last minute packing as usual but on my way well in time for my half seven flight from Manchester to Heathrow. On arrival at Manchester, however, I was informed that due to high winds in London, all flights were delayed. Seeing that I had only 1 hour to make the connection anyway, I was naturally perturbed. BA came through however and switched to an earlier flight which was due to take off at 7.25. All should have been okay except that the plane was further delayed and didn't actually take off until 8pm.

A mad rush ensued on landing and a special bus was put on to make sure we made our connecting flights. Luckily I had an aisle seat with an empty seat at the side of me so I was in for a comfortable flight. No screaming kids this time (see last year's flight to South Africa). But every silver lining has a cloud (!) and this was the guy sitting 2 seats away. I thought I was suffering with a cough and other such cold symptoms but this guy coughed incessantly throughout the flight. Not a lot he could do about that except on occasions he didn't cover his mouth which left me wondering what kinds of germs he was selfishly spreading amongst us all.
Only time would tell.