The long spell at work at last came to an end and we started our holiday at our earliest by catching flight KM102 on Friday afternoon. The dilemma on whether to catch this flight or wait another day was sorted out in favour of the earlier option both to be on the safe side for the standby flight to Nairobi and more importantly to start the holiday earlier.

Just before the holiday I had my usual dose of bad luck when I was involved in a crash of 4 cars. The accident was typical of the very slippery road condition when the last car of the lot crashed into the one before with a ripple effect ending with my poor Mazda. At least the damage does not look so severe and most of all I am absolutely not responsible for a penny in damages to others, which puts my mind at rest till the next insurance evaluation.

This is the first time we had to stay in London for an overnight stay and after we were turned down the special rate at the Heathrow Marriott we settled for the Thistle Hotel in Heathrow. In line with the rest of the holiday it seems that hotel receptionists were understating prices when quoting taxis and hotel prices because the taxi which should have cost £8 instead cost us £18 + £2 tips for the trip. Most probably the reason for this was that we arrived at terminal 4 which is further away from the hotel then terminals 1, 2 and 3. A probably much cheaper option was to go by underground to terminals 1, 2 and 3 and catch the hotel hopper bus (H4) from there.

The hotel was much better and far more expensive than I initially through however after a friendly discussion with the receptionist we managed to get a decent room with an excellent English/Continental style buffet breakfast for £50. The only minor drawback I can complain about is that there were only 4 free TV channels (all others were pay per view), however this mattered very little since we were dead tired and overexcited at the start of the holiday.