Saturday arrived, we were all packed and ready to go, so we just had to wait for the car. We’d decided to treat ourselves to a mini-cab ride to the airport, not least because we had three cases now, and manhandling that lot on the Underground and Overground (Wombling free) trains was going to be difficult.

Our driver turned up right on time, and drove us through the very busy streets of London, all the way to the airport. He said it would take about 80 minutes, and he was right, almost to the minute. He did some great ducking and diving through the back streets between Shepherd’s Bush and Chiswick, but these guys know what they’re doing, and we were on a fixed price fare, so there was no chicanery involved.

While his Toyota Prius wasn’t the cleanest mini-cab I’d ever been in, it was most enjoyable having someone else do the driving. We arrived at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in plenty of time, and tipped the good Salim generously. There’s a £5 charge just to drop people off at Heathrow, and I thought that we’d get charged for that, but no, Express Cars of Clapton included it in the fixed fare.

We had to hang around a bit before the bag check opened for our flight, but when it did there were no lines or crowds, and even though we had to weigh-in ourselves, it all went very smoothly. I’d already checked us in online, but printed new boarding cards from the bag drop machine. I had a faint idea of our seat numbers, and vaguely registered that the boarding passes had different numbers on, but thought nothing of it; a booked seat is a booked seat, after all.

We went through security and sat in the vast departures area, avoiding the shops (mostly), and having an unhurried lunch. At least there is plenty of general seating there, unlike the mess that is Toronto’s Pearson Airport departure areas.

When it was time to head out to the departure gate, we used the little shuttle train. While the terminal hadn’t been that busy, the shuttle trains were packed, and I wondered if they didn’t ought to run a few more trains. Heck, what do I know?

When we arrived at the gate, it was already busy with people standing at the entry point, which you’re always clearly told not to do. We looked at the boarding passes again, checking we were in loading group 3, but we weren’t. It was loading group 2. What’s this? A mistake? No, it wasn’t, because at the top of the boarding card it said “Welcome, enjoy your upgrade to Club World”. Woot! An unasked for upgrade, in part I’m sure because we’re BA Executive Club members. I wasn’t going to argue.

On the ‘plane, a Boeing 777-300, there were lots of those individual “suites” in Club World, with big seats, big TV screens and a little private area to sit in. An unexpected pleasure to be sure, and one that made the tedious flight significantly more bearable. Even the meals were better.

We arrived in Toronto just a little late, and were though customs and immigration in record time. Going through immigration at the airport, we were able to use the new fast-track machines because we’d used the ArriveCan app on our phones to do customs and immigration clearance ahead of time. There is a lot of crap written and spoken about that app, mostly because it came in to help with COVID, and I know there are people who will not use it because they think that the “Gubmint” is spying on them. Well, it worked brilliantly for us and we were through into the baggage reclaim hall in about a minute, while others lined up and struggled completing their declarations in the arrivals hall. The Gubmint collected the same information from everyone else, of course, just not the day before, and not using the app.

We picked up our bags, and our car (they fooled us by using a different collection point, and that had me confused), and we were motoring off to the Four Points Hotel on Dixie Road in a little under an hour after landing. While it may only have been 9:30 pm in Canada, our body clocks were saying 2:30am the next day, and I really didn’t want to drive for three hours in the dark at that ungodly hour, so we’d booked a night close to the airport.

The hotel was OK, clean enough, if a little tired. The bed was comfy, and we both slept well, but those darned body clocks had us up early, at least by Canadian time. The good Mrs. Mayne suggested breakfast at a nearby branch of the vegan fast-food chain, Copper Branch, so in a few short minutes we were breakfasting on plant-based goodies, and feeling very, very mellow.

And that was it. Our run back home was uneventful, the kids were pleased to see us, and we were happy to be home. A good holiday is a good holiday, but coming home is always nice.