With it being the Christmas break I didn’t make my usual detour to Warwick to meet a friend on the way, instead I went directly to Gatwick Airport. It was a late afternoon flight so there wasn’t really any rushing around either. I had been tempted to do the Braunstone Parkrun in the morning before the flight, but decided there wasn’t quite time to fit it in before I’d need to leave for the airport. It was a shame though as I’d have like to have gotten in one last 5K run for 2013.

Part of me thought it was a shame the usual overindulgence of Christmas would be cut short too, but it was a necessary “sacrifice”. We would after all be getting to see a number of countries on this trip and would hopefully result in plenty of wildlife sightings. To try and take a bit of Christmas with me I did pack a little Christmas food for lunch on the way down to the airport.

The drive took around 4 hours due to to traffic on the M1 and M25, normally it should take 3 hours at most. It was very quick to check-in and get through security – the two taking less than 15 minutes from when I arrived at the airport. The plane took off at 17:32 and landed in Madrid at 20:45 (local time). Despite it being a transfer there was still security to go through and then practically nowhere to get food. The one place there was sold very expensive baguettes which you could heat yourself. They weren’t very good though, certainly not worth the 13 euros it cost for it with a small bottle of water and apple cake.

Just after the next flight was scheduled to board it was announced that there was a delay of over an hour due to the plane being late. Sounds like an understandable reason really. Though an hour later they announced there would be a further 2 hour delay due to operational reasons. This meant the earliest we’d be boarding was around 02:20. However we ended up boarding at 01:30 and had left the gate by 02:20 instead.