Day 48 - Becca goes home

We had to say goodbye to Becca this morning as her flight back to Toronto left London Heathrow at noon hour.  I can't believe that it was 16 days earlier that she arrived to visit us.  Where did the time go?  It was wonderful having her visit us here.  Of course we will be home for the Christmas holiday break and will see both of our kids then.  And, it will be Alex's turn to visit us when we return back to the UK in early January.

So this morning we woke up at the London Heathrow Marriott and after a not so full English Breakfast (I mean where were the brown beans, fried tomatoes and fried bread?) we took the local London Transport bus back to the Airport.  When you stay at an airport hotel near Heathrow the local buses are free to those bus stops adjacent to the hotels.  There is a hotel hopper bus service but they charge for that service and you have to follow their hotel sequence.  We had the choice of three bus services that ran past the hotel.

It was a teary moment saying goodbye at the security entrance.  We joked that when Becca was in school we rarely saw her so the time between now and Christmas wouldn't be much different. However, we missed her the moment she left our view and still do.  The same goes for Alex, and we skype him often. 

Ange had arranged for a late checkout so we decided that when we got back to the hotel we would take a walk around the area behind our hotel.  As one would expect the adjacent neighbourhood was pretty run down.  As we walked down one street that led away from the airport and the hotel we came across two pieces of luggage some distance apart but abandoned.  This is obviously where stolen luggage comes to die.  They were closed shut but we walked hastily away wondering what poor passengers were still waiting on their luggage.

Heathrow is supposed to expand to a third runway but the latest news suggests that it would be more environmentally damaging in terms of noise and air pollution than expanding Gatwick Airport south of London.  Certainly, our one hour walk in nearby Harlington would support that assessment.  This village looks like any other English village with a local pub and shop except for the consistent roar of jet engines as planes take off every 1 minute or so.

Having had enough local exposure we took the bus back to the airport, got on the Piccadilly tube line back into London and made our way to Paddington Rail Station for the train home to Moreton-in-Marsh.

Ale of the Day: Double Donn, Donnington Brewery, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.