This will be a very short blog post! On the Sunday morning, my day literally consisted of making the journey back to Belfast.

I was up, showered, dressed and packing up the final bits of my room by 7am. I had the usual end-of-holiday blues thinking about leaving Madrid, my hotel and facing the weather back home!

I said a last goodbye to my room…

…and checked out of the hotel. I probably could have grabbed a quick ten minute breakfast but decided to save that for the lounge at the airport. That wouldn’t work out as I planned!

Outside, it was still dark and the Sunday morning streets were deserted.

I descended the steps into the Metro…

…topped up my card, and started the journey out to the airport. I’d have to change twice and it would take around 40 minutes. The trip cost €5, and I couldn’t help but wonder why at home a trip from central London to Heathrow is four times that on the Elizabeth Line, and almost ten times that if you take the Heathrow Express!

The metro was clean and quiet, with the peace just disturbed by one man sitting watching reels on loudspeaker (literally the one thing I CANNOT STAND! Like it literally drives me insane.) My glares went unnoticed!

I was at the airport for about ten past eight and took the travelators up to departures.

Madrid’s airport – despite being known for the very long distances you may have to walk – is cool!

Check-in

Everything was going smoothly, and I was looking forward to having plenty of time in the lounge.

And then… I arrived at check in. There was one desk open for Club Europe, there were six people in front of me, and the three ladies at the front of the queue had ten bags each. EACH!

We waited… and waited… and waited… for what seemed like an eternity but was actually twenty five minutes as each of their bags was weighed, tagged, and then as each person paid for their excess baggage. Meanwhile, I counted by now that there were fourteen people behind me in the queue.

As the last lady in the group put her second last bag on the belt, two guys – each pushing two trolleys – arrived, with one shouting “great timing!” One of the ladies in the group released the tensa barrier and let the two guys in at the front of the queue.

Words probably can’t accurately express my feelings at this point! Queue skipping is just not OK in my book, but particularly not in this instance. Other people waiting in front of me muttered and rolled their eyes but I felt I had to say something! I went up to one of the men and asked if they had just pushed in at the front of the queue, and pointed to the line of people behind them which was now about twenty deep.

“Yeah but we’re with them,” he replied.

“We’ve been waiting half an hour while these three ladies checked in. Do you not think it would have been fairer for you to join the back of the queue and let other people that arrived before you be served?” was my reply.

“They have to pay our extra bags,” he said.

I gave up at this point but I like to think I gave my best Paddington style stare. In the end we waited 45 minutes to check in. Bang goes my lounge time!

The group were obviously part of a shoot, and I know from personal experience shoots require a lot of luggage. But if I was travelling for work I would never, ever join a queue at the front, kit or not kit. To me that’s just arrogant and selfish!

Very quick lounge time

Anyway, it was what it was! I checked my bag in, flew through fasttrack (or not as the family in front of me had each of their seven trays rejected and searched before mine was searched too).

After taking the transit to the Terminal 4S satellite I weaved through what seemed like a never ending duty free shop maze before finally arriving at the lounge. I worked out I’d probably have around twenty minutes for a spot of breakfast.

Iberia has just one lounge in T4S – the Premium Lounge Velásquez. It’s relatively new and it’s very pleasant! It’s nothing extremely fancy or luxurious, but it’s usually fairly quiet, and it does the job.

I grabbed some tomato juice and some bacon, eggs and tomato and sat and scoffed it down quickly.

I was very impressed by the amazing amount of options offered by the coffee machine – look at that!

I mean is there any kind of coffee not included on that screen? Mocha maybe?

I just had some time to nip to the loo before I started heading to the gate. Just as I was about to leave the lounge I spotted one of the queue-skippers from earlier sitting contentedly in an armchair. And get this! A man – obviously part of the same group – arrived and gave off to him about how there was a massive queue at check-in and he had only just made it in to the lounge. Wonder what caused that!

Flight one: MAD-LHR

My first flight was really pretty uneventful! It departed on time, and there was really nothing extraordinary about it.

We were served lunch, which I felt was a bit of a stretch seeing it was only 11am! And the menu choices seemed a bit heavy – I went for the chicken but it felt more like a dinner than a lunch!

I did a sudoku and read a book for the whole flight – I’ve mostly stopped watching TV or films on planes now and just enjoy chilling out and reading a physical book.

During the flight I was very intrigued by a man who had an open, really fancy, old-school briefcase on his lap and was sitting reading typed documents for most of the journey. He had arrived on the plane complaining politely about the enormous queue at check in and was smartly dressed. I could spot a Canadian passport and the edge of an ID Card amongst his briefcase belongings. I had the feeling he was someone quite important. Who was he I wondered? Strain as I might I couldn’t gather any more info from his briefcase!

Heathrow connection

On arrival at Heathrow, the intriguing man was met by a very posh lady who welcomed him and then started escorting him through the terminal. Now I was even more intrigued! The only thing I could decipher from the report he’d been reading on the plane was that “Lorraine has moved to a group”. I think sadly this will be a mystery that remains unsolved!

I was through security quite quickly, and as I had a three hour layover, decided to head to the lounge in the B gates at Terminal 5, which I find is usually quieter than the lounges in the main terminal.

You can take a transit train there, but I prefer to stretch my legs, and take the ten minute walk through the underground tunnel which links the A and B gate buildings.

The lounge was pretty quiet and chill and I sat and wrote my blog as scoffed down some small sausage rolls and a vegetarian scotch egg – where the egg had been replaced by beetroot. I wasn’t sure about that!

I neglected to get any photos in the lounge apart from this one sorry!

Not very exciting that image sorry! Before long it was time to walk back to the A gates for my flight.

Flight two: LHR – BHD

My heart sank a bit when we saw that we were leaving from one of Terminal 5’s bussed gates. We got on the bus, were driven for literally forty five seconds, and then ejected at a stand which was connected to the terminal by an air bridge. We had to board at the back of the plane too.

The Inflight Manager, to be fair, was very apologetic! He explained one of the lifts at the gate was broken, which would have meant disabled passengers wouldn’t have been able to use the jet bridge, so the decision was taken to put us all on a bus.

There was a very long taxi to the runway, and then we were airborne.

I skipped a second lunch and just snacked on the flight and had some drinks, while I read more of my book.

Again there was nothing to note about the journey really, and no international man of mystery this time!

We landed back in Belfast, to be met with the usual drizzle and dark grey skies. After a short wait for my bags, I was in a taxi and heading back home. I’d had a great trip, and felt totally refreshed. I agree 110% with the saying travel broadens the mind! I’d found it so inspiring being away somewhere different and seeing and doing new things.

And the good news for me is I don’t have to wait too long for my next trip! I’m off to Paris in May to see an artist from my teenage years in concert which I am VERY EXCITED ABOUT! Maybe I’ll see you back at my blog then!