Back after a two-year break

I knew I shouldn't have gone to the pub last night but it was a meeting with many of the dads that I wouldn't see till September. It meant I had to pack late and would probably forget something. I awoke bang on 5.45am a second before my alarm and jumped in the shower after waking up the kids. In the end I had to delay the taxi by 15 minutes to 7am as I was still finding things to pack. But I had some clothes, passports, keys, wallet, and tissues so we couldn't go far wrong. I'd even printed out the boarding passes for good measure.

We'd done City Airport once before a long time ago, but this time we got a 17 minute cab to Woolwich Arsenal DLR, from where it was a short two stop ride to City, and should be the hardest part of our trip considering we wouldn't have luggage trolleys. Tan let it be known that she'd managed to pack all her and the kids' stuff into one large and one hand luggage, while mine took up two large suitcases and three carry-ons. It's not quite true; I had at least two of her pairs of flipflops, plus I'd brought Leilei's skateboard and a Wii Fit board, in shades of 2008 when I justified bringing it by dint of the fact that although we'd only be five and a half weeks, I'd be leaving it as it was a spare. I just hope we'll have a TV to play it on.

Getting on the first flight to Frankfurt - something wrong with Xixi's head

I'm used to arriving at the airport and going straight to security but I'd not built into the plan that we'd need to check in luggage. The place was packed and it seemed mostly with holiday goers. So after queues and all we only just had about enough time to visit the loo before our flight was called. Luckily I'd told Tan not to get duty free here as we'd only have to go through security again in Frankfurt. The flight, even for me, was pretty straightforward, up and down, and on time despite the wet landing.

I knew we'd have five hours to kill and I had a plan to kill them; duty free for Tan and me, and spend the rest of the time in the lounge. What I hadn't counted on was the time Tan would spend buying three bottles of perfume, and the time we'd spend looking for the lounge. The perfume took nearly an hour. I'd already got cigarettes and booze for friends in 10 minutes, which included eight minutes looking for Pimms that didn't exist. But when we asked about the lounge we were told not to go, as it would involve leaving the airport security area and having to come back in. I argued that we had four hours and the woman reluctantly gave us directions. It transpired that the lounge was "landside", as opposed to "airside", meaning before security, not to mention on the other side. But I think the 20 minute walk was worthwhile as when we eventually found it we had food and drink and a calmer environment and better wifi than the airport could provide.

At the lounge in Frankfurt - definitely something wrong with Xixi's head

But I was suddenly struck by a terror, even more severe than that when I'd discovered how much we'd spent on perfume and ciggies. If we were outside security, we were effectively like any Tom, Dick, or Harry coming in from the street. Yet we had four litres of booze and three bottles of perfume on us. Admittedly they were sealed but I had a vision of them being confiscated, so I bade us leave a good 30 minutes earlier than I normally would have done. In fact when we got to security they were fine with the sealed duty free, and I breathed an audible sigh of relief that I hope Tan didn't hear or understand - it would have been my fault of course if we'd had to leave it all behind.

And 10 minutes later we were standing outside a grand Airbus A380 - a rather large double decker passenger plane. I went for a gander when I heard the first call for people to go to the gate - I saw a horrid queue form and inwardly laughed at the people in it; we were all going to get a seat so why stand up for so long? Then I got a missed call from Tan. I guessed she'd heard the call too and went to tell her to relax. But that was the opposite of what she wanted to do. She told me that she'd been told we could get on first as we had young children. Young kids? We can't even park in those family spaces in Sainsburys any more and for at least two years had not been able to take advantage of this on flights. I wanted to believe her so went to the area between first class and economy and sure enough they allowed us on first with our obviously difficult to manage 11 and eight year olds. I told her "well done" but didn't labour the point that we didn't really deserve this.