Christmas in England without a Hitch!

I am amazed at how well our Christmas in England went.

We were due to fly from Tokyo Narita to Heathrow on 23rd December. On 18th a heavy fall of snow saw Heathrow unable to use its runways.

On the 19th, “Heathrow airport continued to be affected with only 20 flights from a scheduled 1300 taking off and “30 tons of snow was being removed from each parking stand around the planes“. I quite expected our flight to be cancelled, or if not, then I thought we might end up stuck in Tokyo, or London, or, if the trains were running then I thought it likely that there would be serious delays, breakdowns and all the usual joys of travelling by train in Britain in Christmas week.

In the event, our flight was not cancelled and when we landed at Heathrow airport around 3:15pm, several minutes ahead of schedule, I found myself looking around in vain to see any snow. The staff had done an excellent job of clearing the runways and you can see them hard at it in this video:

The next day, we made two flasks of tea for “emergencies”. When we got to Kings Cross we found out that the train we had booked seats on had been cancelled. However, we were able to catch a train that had been brought in especially for the Christmas Eve rush. It had no reserved seats so we were able to get seats and a table and arrived at our destination 40 minutes ahead of schedule.

Amazing for England, in the snow, in Christmas week!

Here are some photos.

DH