Anyone for a tea party? Off to Boston.

Up early and Eric is checking the weather; dry at least.  Our journey to Heathrow today should only take half an hour (traffic and the M25 permitting). 

Roads are kind to us and arrive for the flight in good time, going straight through security in a prompt and timely manner.  Although heart sinks as one bag is siphoned off for extra security checks on the liquids keeping up what seems to be becoming a regular occurrence, additional screening on the female of the species. 

Next comes a sit down breakfast.  Eric did think it was a bit too early for a G&T though.  Also, does Proscecco count as tonic? 

The flight starts very well, walk twenty minutes to gate, board almost immediately and the pilot advises that we should be in Boston ahead of schedule.  As a bonus, we soon discover that the flight may not be particularly crowded. We both have window seats and Eric occupies the space between us.

Is this the impact of Brexit on tourism to the USA? As you can see we have all 8 seats in row 40 so who needs to pay for extra legroom.

Settle down, watch a couple of films and it's soon time to land.  

Thought the vapour trail from the canard wing tip made an interesting picture.

Pilot assures us we will be landing in about fifteen minutes, but fifteen minutes later we are still at 7000 feet and seem to have done a loop and various turns.  The pilot is either lost or maybe we are in some random holding pattern.  As we eventually come in to land we are informed that the delay was because there was a cruise ship blocking entry to the runway - Reggie Perrin would have been proud of that excuse!  

Taxi towards parking spot but they are not quite ready for us.  Pilot advises we should be ready to disembark quickly and get to customs before the passengers from the Swissair plane that is behind us on the apron.  See the Swissair plane passing us on the inside while we await our spot, so much for that then.   

Whatever next - well, note from pilot, the airbridge is broken and the workman is looking for a spanner to fix it, which they weren't able to do. Not able to leave the plane until they find an alternative set of suitable steps.   These arrive and we have a rather wobbly exit onto the tarmac (the steps are very bouncy). 

Takes us quite a while to clear US Customs (understatement), one of us had to be fingerprinted and iris scanned twice (you'll never guess which one!). Finally reach accommodation for night to find they were not expecting us until tomorrow! Luckily they had a room for today anyway and won't charge us for cancelling tomorrow's bogus booking.