I used to be a regular traveller. Honestly, I did. I was on this site all the time, and could instinctively tell you which queues at T5 would be the quickest at which time, where to sit in which lounge (the Flounge, of course). But that's a while ago. So, those still in this position may find the following post painful, for which I apologise in advance. Bear in mind that my normal frame of reference these days is easyJet out of Luton on a peak school holiday. However, a fresh pair of eyes gives a different perspective, and I have to say, T5 really isn't bad, is it? My main memories of Heathrow are the dying days of T1, with zone R hastily tagged on. But T5 is here, glassy, big, not nearly as dated as it could be for its age, and, well, this is the bus drop off from the car hire, so it's not exactly the scenic viewpoint.

We waltzed (other dance steps are available, but this is premium, so it has to be a dance - I don't write the rule) to the CW check-in. I don't know why. Well, OK, I do know why - we were travelling CW. But we could easily have gone to the family check-in or the bag drop desks and been through far more quickly, but somehow, it feels like you have to use the manned CW check-in. We did have a lot of luggage, so it seemed fair. All very pleasant and efficient enough. No Skyflyers kits, but my son really wasn't bothered (and wouldn't have admitted it if here were). We were advised to use the far queue (I'm assuming this was genuine and we hadn't done something to upset them) for security. Is it north or south? I don't know, I've always found the cardinal directions in T5 unduly confusing. It was the one over that way. The far one. And fair play, Fast Track was dead quiet. We would have been through in a couple of minutes (following the x-ray "tragedy" pose) if there hadn't been a *miscommunication* about which sets of liquids were in which carry-on. Mea culpa, probably. We get a subtle and possibly imagined eye roll from the security person, a recheck, and what seemed to be the same security questions you get at check-in rephrased to sound more complex.

So we went to the lounge next to the First Lounge. Galleries? I told you, my grasp on the terminology is slipping. It wasn't the really busy one next to the exit from the security check, it wasn't First or Concorde because I'm not nearly important or rich enough, and it wasn't the one in the B gates, because we held on to a false notion that we might look round the shops and not have an extended breakfast. I've never been in this lounge before, I just know that it's less busy than the really busy one. So we went on up and up, my son enjoying the random horses, and found a corner to occupy because we were all quite ready for some breakfast. This lounge has a slightly odd vibe, and I think it's because, despite having loads of glass and windows, most of it doesn't have a view. Though, to Heathrow's credit, the view over the internal bits covering other bits of the terminal doesn't show up nearly as much dust and dirt as some other airports. It's a buffet breakfast, and so the rules are - mixed up cereal, fruit, some creative sandwich involving the cooked stuff, and then as many pastries as you can get away with. It's not a bad spread, and I do understand why all the plates and things are so small, but it's fine. It's like a Premier Inn breakfast, but one of the one's in a dedicated breakfast room, not one of the ones in a pub that still smells of last night. Which is fine - but I preferred the T2 LH breakfast offering (sorry BA).

My son finds the corner with some gaming console in it and so any thoughts of visiting shops or the B lounge quickly evaporate. Our gate's up, we don't have to resort to bribery to tear him away, and the transit seems to be doing its thing as it should. It's a little while before boarding starts, so he's off testing me on the most obscure tailfins he can spot. It won't be long before he's embarrassed at this. But we're on in group 1, and quickly find our seats - we had 5AEF (thanks to some judicious status matching to get the seats booked without the very expensive fees). My last journey in CW was 10 years ago, so it was still the front-back arrangement (I must be one of the few people who preferred flying backwards) but this is a definite step up. Really nice, fresh, new cabin, lots more room, and lots of privacy without clambering over people. Warm welcome onboard, and they're lovely with my son, who is wowed mostly by the IFE. I really hope he doesn't think all long-haul flights will be like this. The child lock on the IFE is easy to apply and well thought out, incidentally.

There is, however, a big problem with this flight, and that problem is Russia. Or rather, the lack of ability to fly over it. Don't get me wrong, pretty much every complaint in this TR will be a level about First World Problems, but as we can't take the direct route, we have to go on a walkabout through the Stans. So a formerly 10h flight is now 14h. Which would be OK, but you leave at 09:20 and arrive at 07:00, and that's about the worst combination for jetlag - something I really don't want on my son's first long haul. It "helps" that we don't live that near Heathrow, so we were up at 3am anyway (and had built ourselves up to this). The flight was clearly arranged to treat it as an overnight from mid-afternoon onwards, and the meals (a Lunch/Dinner followed by Breakfast) reflected this. However, this did feel a little stingy for 14 hours. Which made the large lounge breakfast all the more worthwhile.