And now... The part you've all been waiting for... An RJ flight to Birmingham! (Same energy as "Tonight, from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week!" but I do wonder how many would get that particular cultura reference). To be fair, I have a soft spot for Birmingham, so when the redemption came back as not having any availability fo London, I wasn't overly disappointed.

So, we'd been on a 2h delayed flight from HKG after the edge of a typhoon, we'd been lucky enough to have a Hall L to Hall L connection in Roissy and we got through security in record time. And, having thought we were going to miss the flight entirely, we headed up in the lift to the AF lounge, in search of coffee, as anybody off a red-eye rightfully would. And pastries. I'm not expecting Pierre Hermé but a decent pain aux raisins would do me a power of good. It's a big, long lounge, this one. And busy - very busy. Which is fair, it's a busy time of day. It's clean, but not just come back from Japan clean. However, there's some booths down the far end, so we take over one of those and go to fill up on caffeine and second breakfast. And I'm not disappointed - I even find a secretive looking pain suisse to top up my blood sugar levels. It's not a lingering stay, and not the shower and refresh stop off we'd hoped for, but I'd very happily spend time in here again.

The BHX flight is just starting boarding when we get to the gate. Too tired for a waltz, we just walk on board. It looks pretty full, but we easily find space for all our luggage (always quite impressed by the E190s in the respect). The C cabin is 2 rows, and have all of row 2. The seats are no different to any others on the plane, exactly what you'd expect for a European short hop. I do like an Embraer, and this is a comfortable example of one. We push back on time and have a tour of a good chunk of Ile de France (and possibly a bit of Picardy) before finding a runway. Up and away and, hmm, what's that smell?

Having thought second breakfast would fill me up completely, I now sit facing the prospect of third breakfast. I could refuse it. But there's a very nice cream cheese and lardon filled crepe wafting its way under my nose, and the promise of croissant, so I just go with it. And it's good! Long time since I had the pleasure of short-haul business flights. The coffee flows freely but I manage to stay short of the jitters as we head down to the second city.

BHX is one of those airports that really varies with the time of day. I've seen it utterly chaotic (especially with the bizarre decision to get red of the escalators and force everyone to queue for lifts to get to security or to the station) but it's usually pretty decent when the morning flights come in from the European hub. Later in the day it's a lot more "nothing beats a Jet2 holiday", and the crowds build up. So, and this was what I hoped for, even though we were at the furthest gate, we were at the front of the immigration queue a couple of minutes later (no e-gates for my son in this country), being greeted with a cheery "alright, bab, where you coming in from?", which, honestly, was the welcome back to the UK I was after. Bags were out quickly, and we were out into a fairly peaceful BHX arrivals area, where MrsStut and my son were quite happy to wait at Costa while I went off to get the car, and repark it in one of the busiest, most cramped short-stays I've ever been in. But we made it. And the M6 and A14 were kind to us.