Cheetah_SA

Off to the lounge with well over an hour before our 20h15 departure. The F section is crowded! Didn't even look into J since that is crowded at the best of times. And this is after the first JNB flight has departed. CPT is next and then there's another JNB flight. Where do all these people come from? Later I work out that some must be Voyager Plats since quite a few disappear into the J cabin. And an awful lot remained behind presumably for the 21h05 JNB flight.

We are forced to sit under the big TV screen yammering away with Sky news. A friendly assistant offers me the menu and I ask for a glass of champers (another ritual of mine - a l/h trip should be initiated with bubbly). Both SO and I decide against the food offerings though some look quite tempting. We want to shower and not spoil our appetites.

SO finds all the showers are locked. Can they all be in use? I have seldom encountered anyone else using them so I enquire. Turns out you need to go to the front desk, lodge your boarding pass and get a key. (Apart from lodging your BP, they use this system at the LHR arrivals lounge to cope with the morning rush. Not sure why it has been instituted in the F departures lounge. At JNB’s J departure lounge they require you to lodge your BP in order to get towels! You get your BP back when you return the towels. How tacky is that! Is the calibre of J pax in Africa really so bad they can’t be trusted with the towels?)

I get SO a key and enjoy my bubbly. I check when I get a refill: it's Piper. The red and white wines are S African and do not tempt me away from bubbly. There is also middle tier liquor and a selection of snacks (cashew nuts, crisps etc.). I notice the "business centre" and a peek indicates that despite the crush in the lounge there is actually a free computer and several other open stations. Not sure how many other computers are provided but I took the opportunity to check mail.

When SO emerges scrubbed and fresh, I ask for another key. Consternation and confusion! They'll have a shower cleaned for me. Since there are at least 3 (possibly 4, I can't rightly remember) and I have seen nobody going to the showers I don't understand the run-around. Just give me clean towels, I plead. But a minion is despatched and seemingly within seconds the shower that SO used is pristinely clean and ready for me. I’ve always liked the showers in the SA lounges – big enough, nice African-lite décor and practical. Except that they don’t provide basin plugs (do pax steal these too?), which is very annoying, when you want to shave. As I am dressing they call the CPT flight. Such timing!