Stansted Airport 21 May 2015

Finished at last! And off to Ireland.  I caught a taxi to Saxmundham and then trains from there to Ipswich, London Liverpool and Stansted Airport. What a pleasure it is to hop on and off trains that have so far always been on time and extremely comfortable.

Stansted must be one of the busiest airports I've ever been in - it really is a cattle run. For the first time ever my whole procedure was paper free. I downloaded the airline app on to my i-pad and then just held it under the scanner whenever required - no queues besides the longest queue I've ever seen to go through security. There is a financial incentive to do it this way as they charge you to book in, in person. Mind you, they charge separately for everything - luggage, seat booking, priority loading, refreshments, newspapers, lottery tickets - it's a flying supermarket.

I got there two hours early for my flight and just plonked down on the floor and watched people go by. Quite interest viewing.

Then on to the plane which was jam packed. The airline stewards spent most of the flight walking up and down the aisles selling their wares. The plane was full of businessmen. My fellow passenger did the sign of the cross repeatedly on take off and then drank 2 bottles of wine. He actually was very pleasant company. I thought I'd skip the wine though, not having had any for 3 weeks (!) beforehand, I probably would have fallen down the stairs.