I spent a very pleasant couple of days wandering Gibraltar, including up and down the rock twice. My take away from that is that, non-human primates have issues with overenthusiastic offspring as well








Another top tip for anyone interested in the airport (ie no one): the views are pretty good from the Princess Caroline's battery kind of area.
Again, not sure why but I was a little surprised to see a Spanish registered plane landing here- isn't there a war on or something?!


Game. On.





24th July 2019
BA493
GIB-LHR
1205-1355
British Airways Airbus A320
Seat 11F

Today was another episode in the now renewed for second season hit, "seemed like a good idea at the time"
The specific stupid idea today was flying from Gibraltar to Valencia, via Heathrow and Madrid, although of course if I hadn't I would have missed out on the great Gibraltar airport lounge (especially the terrace)


And also great views on taxi such as "the weirdos from the register"


And, finally, on climb out...THE ROCK OUT OF THE F SIDE WINDOWS!!!


Standard ET non-service so not a lot to comment on from the in fight perspective
We arrived at 1331 so 14 minutes ahead of schedule
Taxied past Air Belgium on the way in (edit: I think this is the same flight but the scratches on the window don't quite match so, could be camera angles or I could have this wrong)



At Heathrow I was trying to be smart and go to the T5B Galleries (still a sapphire at this stage...), but as I wasn't sure of how much time I would have to dick around backwards and forwards if I got an A gate, and since no one in the terminal could tell me how likely I was to get one, I decided to play it safe and head for galleries south.
It was packed as it often is, although as predicted I didn't have a problem getting a seat at the benches near the coffee machines
(Mildly diverting anecdote: the lady sitting next to me had the exact same handbag and almost took mine when she upped and left. Great idea for a dead drop, possibly)

24th July 2019
BA464
LHR-MAD
1645-2010
British Airways Airbus A321
Seat 10A

Boarding was something of a zoo; I had managed to snag one of the most decent seats on the plane though; unfortunately for the two blokes next to me, the other seats in row 10 are pretty lacking in leg room, and 10F has a crew seat in the position where my enormous legroom was- I'm assuming there used to be a decent stretch of floor in this area and 4 additional seats have been placed? I felt beyond awful for the poor CC seated opposite 10F, it was a good job she was tiny as the stepping over legs in the confined space did not look appealing to me, at all



I had that morning received an email advising my meagre orphaned avios balance was going to expire soon, given my idiot brother has been totally unable to work out how to spend them out of the household account (his new girlfriend since seems to have instructed him to book more holidays so finally they are getting used), however at the time I did the caring sister thing and ordered a pink gin paid with avios from the BoB menu. For my brother, you know

There was a bit of a commotion with the crew and some back and forth between the two of them on the cart when I ordered it.
I assumed that, despite my grey hairs they were trying to work out if I was of legal drinking age, although someone on here pointed out that they might have been conferring on whether I was too intoxicated to be served (fair)

We overflew a small island that looked to be a familiar shape


Obviously waved at Uncle T like a crazy normal person but I have a feeling he wasn't home that day

I wandered back to check out the amazing Spaceflex arrangement
The crew were clearly having a miserable time trying to fit trolleys and their work around the opening and closing of las doors etc. I asked if it was the worst thing ever and one agreed it was "horrible", however another lady did not take kindly to the question and asked what business it was of mine how BA chose to arrange their lavs (clearly none but I tend to prefer the cabin crew to not be unnecessarily stressed- maybe that makes me a bad person

We had departed 25 minutes late and as such arrived 25 minutes late also

Luckily I still had plenty of time to kill before my onwards flight so made my leisurely way through transit security to the lounge. There were lots of stressed people rushing through security (and, as an aside, taking far longer to get through than if they hadn't been rushing, because of not clearing pockets properly etc etc)

I had bags of time to spend in the MAD lounge at an awkward non-meal time (again), before heading out for...

24th July 2019
BA7146 (IB8982)
MAD-VLC
Iberia operated by Air Nostrum Bombardier CRJ1000
Seat 18A 19A
2310-0010

I was reasonably early to the gate given the boring/relatively long layover and my previous Barajas fun run experience
I had been able to select an emergency exit row as OWS
However, once boarding was complete I was asked to move back a row to accomodate yet another deadheading crew member, who wanted the exit (he was a pilot and rather tall so...alrighty then)

I *think* this was on the tarmac as we were taxiing out- but my notes are illegible (feel free to tell me it was somewhere else! or, checking the times, more likely on the taxi in?!)


MAD-VLC is an hour's flight and has typical Air Nostrum service (ie not much) so as always, not much comment to be made there

On arrival it was good to see an airport taking their model planes seriously


There was a ridiculous level of confusion about baggage reclaim belts
I was trialling the new Flighty app (https://www.flightyapp.com), which had the reclaim down as #5 , as did the wall display in the airport. But for some reason, everyone from my flight was clustered around a completely different reclaim (I can't remember the number of it but essentially it was before the door of no return which lead to #5 ). Unsure whether to trust the tech or a bunch of spaniards who presumably fly this route all the time, I hesitated for a moment before heading for belt 5, where I found my bag and a bunch of others. The upside of the confusion was that I had no queue for a taxi!

I was staying in the NH Valencia Las Ciencias (https://m.nh-hotels.com/hotel/nh-valencia-las-ciencias) - this is the slightly crappier version of the NH Valencia Las Artes next door, but given I was going to be in Valencia for 24 hours and mainly sightseeing in that time it seemed ridiculous to spend the extra just for a flat surface to sleep on. In the end it was perfectly serviceable and acceptable and the night receptionist was an absolute gem. And so it was bedtime