Thank you for the advice and reassurance stu1985, c-w-s. Very much appreciated. The photo of the apron is very helpful indeed: it looks as tiny as I imagined from my bit of reading.

Very jealous of you living there for a year, stu1985, I absolutely loved it when I visited last year, hence the return this year.

I think I was reading the wrong bit of the bus timetable, LTN Phobia. The bus seems to arrive 50 minutes before the BA flights. The 30 minute arrival is for the SAS flights.

I entirely I agree I'm far too cautious arriving a couple of hours early for flights, c-w-s I spend my working days anticipating what might go wrong with computer systems and my caution/paranoia there has bled into other areas. Perhaps this trip to AAR will cure me!

Thanks again to all.