Leaving the UK!

For our last night in the UK, we were spending the night at the Sofitel Hotel at Heathrow airport as we'd been advised that saying the final goodbyes the day before would make the travelling experience easier to bear.  We went out for a meal in Muswell Hill with Sophie's mum, dad and sister to say our farewells to them before being dropped off at the hotel by Sophie's parents!  Some more tears were shed here, but we don't think it will be too long before they come out to see us in Calgary! (Well, we hope so anyway).

We enjoyed a couple of drinks in the hotel bar before attempting to get some sleep before our flight out the following day, what with all the emotions running wild etc, we didn't expect this to be easy!  The bed, however, certainly helped in this department and it was so comfortable that we slept well 'til 8:30 in the morning.

We'd already checked in online at the hotel for our flights, so had a leisurely morning getting all the luggage sorted and then checked out from the hotel about 1pm.  We then got the luggage on trolleys and wheeled them through the connecting tunnel from the hotel to T5 at Heathrow.  We double checked the weight of all our luggage and had 3 cases weighing in at 31.5kg, 1 at 24.5kg, 1 set of golf clubs, 1 bag of Ice Hockey gear (plus a few extras) and hand luggage consisting of 1 case weighing 16kg, 1 laptop bag plus 2 other bags!!!  We knew this was going to cost us £25/bag for every one over 23kg's and excepted the £100 bill heading our way.  However, when we checked it in, the check-in assisstant's first comment was "emigrating to Australia?", followed by "they were well packed" and "oversized luggage goes over there", but no "that will be £100 please".  We said nothing obviously and can only imagine that because we were emigrating, they overlooked the charges, so a big thank you to BA, because I dread to think what this amount of luggage might have cost with other airlines!!

We picked up a bit of duty free (as if we didn't have enough luggage already!) and enjoyed a drink at the bar before boarding the plane to leave for our new life in Calgary!