At Birmingham Airport

Well, we're here at Birmingham Airport.  All very painless getting here - straight down the M1, on to the A42 by East Midlands Airport, then on to the M42, leaving it near the NEC.  About an hour and 20 minutes overall.

Oh look, it's Mr Bloggy at it again

Transfer from the security car park was very quick.  Check in a bit slow but our cases both came in just under the 20kg limit - helped by some frantic ditching of stuff by both of us before we set  off - Graeme's case started off the day at just under 23kg!

My cabin bag - rucksack on this occasion to save weight - was around 1.5kg over their 5kg supposed limit, but they weren't weighing those!!  If only I'd known that - I could have taken some of the rubbish I'd left at home after all!

Security was quick and we got through to a very extensive duty free and refreshments area where we've been whiling away the minutes having our Boots meal deal lunch and seeing how much it was to have anything in the Blanc et Noir wine bar - well, it's £7 for a glass of wine and £11 for a panini, so we stuck with Boots!

Gate will be announced in around 10 minutes' time and then we'll call by WH Smith for a copy of Hello and OK  for 'Madam' and a copy of the The Times of London for 'Sir'.