Following approximately 42 hours of travelling, we finally arrive in the Lake District, where we will be staying for the next few days.

Unfortunately, as mentioned in the previous post, Isabel’s sniffles developed into a full blown cold, meaning she is very bunged up and feeling somewhat sorry for herself. This meant the 13 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to London was very, very long and tiring. It was also not helped by the fact that the woman sitting in the seat in front of Isabel had her seat back as far as it would go for virtually the entire leg. This meant that even with her short legs, Isabel couldn’t straighten them so settled instead for kicking the back of the seat causing the woman to look round and frown on a regular basis.

Not having flown with Singapore airlines before we were expecting great things but I, for one, was rather disappointed. I had heard great things about the quality of the customer service but apart from the hot towels (which I have to admit were rather refreshing) and the amenity kit including a toothbrush and toothpaste, I wasn’t particularly impressed. And I have to say although the seats weren’t too bad as far as comfort was concerned, the lack of space between your seat and the one in front was a real pain. When the guy sitting in front of me reclined his seat back (which he did approximately six nanoseconds after the fasten seat belt signs had been switched off) there were only about eight inches between my chest and the back of his seat. This meant it was very difficult to see the screen on the entertainment system, and it’s a good job I didn’t want to use my laptop as there is no way I could have angled the screen to see it.

Still, we landed, at last, at just after 5 o’clock in the morning, and happily made our way off the plane. The Munchkin rucksack, which we’d checked in at the gate, was taken by mistake to the main baggage carousel rather than being left as you get off the plane. A very helpful Heathrow baggage person, though, went and collected it for us and brought it to where we were standing. He then took the car seat up to the baggage area for us, to save us having to carry it ourselves. All this meant that, although we had to wait 10 minutes or so to get the rucksack, it did mean we were then able to head straight to the baggage reclaim, pick up our stuff and head straight through customs and immigration in no time.

The temperature when we left Wellington had been around 18-20 degrees, and as previously noted, was 30 degrees in Singapore. When we landed at Heathrow it was …. 2 degrees!! However, we were both glad to get back to the cold, especially as the plane felt it was about 50 degrees at times (which didn’t help Munchkin’s mood, as she gets quite irritable when she’s too hot).

We left Heathrow and picked up our hire car (good job we hired an estate with all the baggage we had!) and made the journey up to the Lake District, which is where we are at the moment. The journey was extremely straight forward, with the roadworks on the way fairly limited, and proving fairly feeble at slowing us down!

It wasn’t long, and it started raining. Oh well – two degrees, grey and raining. Welcome back to the UK, Winchursts!!!