Well, that was fun. Not.

Thursday morning, get foot passenger ferry to Vancouver. Gets in at 1pm and flight’s not until 9pm, so quite a bit of time to meet up with Dirk’s son and have a proper chat. Oh, great, halfway across the strait message comes from British Airways that flight has been delayed and will now leave at midnight. Oh, well.

We’re booked in business class to can get into the lounge with free booze and food once we’ve checked in, but when will check in open? Over late lunch I spend nearly 40 minutes on hold to speak to BA agent, who tell me check at Vancouver airport will open four hours before departure time. Original departure time, I ask her, or delayed departure time? “Original,” she says. I ask if she is certain. “I believe so,” she says. Okay, then.

Happily it is original departure time.

I have to say, having been in the KLM business class lounge at YVR and now the BA one, the KLM lounge is way better. Better drinks, better food and considerably better ambience.

Anyway, it’s a long wait.

But eventually we get on board and have a glass of champagne delivered to our seats.

The coffin beds aren’t all that comfortable, but at least they are beds of a sort and eventually we both manage to get a bit of sleep.

Disembark. Painless passage through passport control. Head to baggage reclaim. The carousel where our luggage is due to appear is already overflowing. Same bags going round and round and round from other flights also assigned to this carousel. It is taking a very long time and the display says Vancouver flight luggage has yet to arrive. Eventually an enterprising young woman hunts down an employee, who explains that the luggage going around in circles is actually from a flight from Milan that took so long to arrive the passengers all gave up and went home with the promise of their belongings being delivered to their homes/hotels. BUT NO ONE HAS REMOVED THAT LUGGAGE SO CAROUSEL IS ABSOLUTELY FULL AND NOTHING NEW CAN BE ADDED. I kid you not.

It seems as if they’ve thrown in the towel and are advising everyone to go home and await the arrival of our belongings sometime “in the next 48 to 72 hours”. I kid you not. Clearly we cannot do that. Clearly we are stuck, now hoping our bags will turn up in baggage reclaim while the tube is still running and we can still get into our AirBnb. Sit down on floor until bench seats become available.

It’s a long time since I’ve arrived at Heathrow with anything other than carry on baggage and this is a reminder why it is a very good idea. This is not a new or isolated problem at Heathrow.

Two hours later luggage turns up and we make our escape. Find our way to Deptford, pick up coffee, milk and a bottle of prosecco in the local minimart, find shop where we need to pick up keys, find flat, get in. Figure out how to turn hot water on and hook up wi-fi. It is now 10:30pm. Dirk pulls two wine glasses out of cupboard, preparing to open prosecco. No, I say.

There’s a reason I picked this flat for our stay. It is a five-minute walk away from and excellent old back street boozer. I don’t care if all we have to eat before we go to bed is a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and some dry roasted, I am in London and I want a decent pint of bitter before I go to bed.

Get to pub. As I had hoped (but not promised), there are Irish musicians playing.

I get my pint of bitter and am now very happy camper.

Dirk does his dog whisperer routine with a local canine.

Back to the flat and off to bed. Sleep well. Wake up, look at watch. My goodness it’s 8:30. We should get up. Get up. Look at watch again. Oops, it’s only ten past six. Make coffee anyway, sit down and write this. Welcome to jet lagged sleeping pattern.

Hello, Saturday in London!