We’re waiting for boarding to open for our flight to Cape Town. It was strange not having to rush or worry about time at any point during our day at Heathrow – even though it took nearly 80 minutes to get from “off the plane” until “through security and on the concourse”, it didn’t matter.

We visited two BA lounges, the North (in the main terminal) and the satellite lounge in the B Gates area (our plane leaves from the B Gates). They were both much less crowded than the main South lounge and we were easily able to find seats with power, which is a nice change.

We had so much time available that we walked the underground walkway between the main terminal and the B Gates rather than taking the train. It was quiet – almost eerily so; we only saw two or three other people on the 15-minute walk. In fact, we had to take a selfie because no one else was around to take our picture!

The time to board nears – next stop, Cape Town!

We’re at the very back of the upstairs Club World cabin on an A380, which has its good points and its bad points. The good: we could sit together and neither of us had to climb over anyone or be climbed over for aisle access, unlike almost any other seats in Club World (BA has a very weird seating arrangement). The bad: we were the last to be served dinner, so we didn’t start eating until nearly 9pm San Francisco time.

My tray table wouldn’t stay level – since there was no one in the seat next to me, the flight attendant took down that tray table and put my drinks on it. It worked wonderfully well, and I used it for my night table so I could charge my watch and still look at it when I needed to know the time.

We were finished with dinner a little after 10, which is 6am London time. I slept some, but woke up every hour, which is pretty normal for me when I try to sleep on a red eye. My most recent wake up was at noon London time; I can hear breakfast being prepared, and we’re supposed to land in a couple of hours, so I guess it’s time to get up and face the day, which will be entirely spent in the hands of British Airways.