London – Briefly

I’m sure many people would decide that if they had a day transiting (I’m not sure I can call it transit when it’s my home country, but that word works here for me) in London, they might actually get a hotel and have a peaceful night’s sleep before their flight the next morning.

I decided though that this was another ideal opportunity to walk around Heathrow T3 for the night, uncovering more areas that I’ve never discovered. Well, this doesn’t really work, I think I’ve discovered all of Gatwick, Heathrow T3 and Heathrow T5 over the years. But, I can people watch. Or the people that are around to watch that is….

Anyway, I get ahead of myself. My day was full of things that I can’t talk about (not that they’re important, more just drivel really that isn’t worth talking about), but it involved firstly getting from Gatwick South Terminal to London. By miracle given the recent railway fiasco, my train was on time and I got into London much earlier than I had anticipated. I got off at London Bridge, hence the photo of the Shard at the top.

I also got chance to go to Wimbledon. When I say Wimbledon, I mean I went to the place, I didn’t actually see any tennis. But I can say that I was there. Well, down the road.

Travelling to Heathrow at night isn’t really that common a pursuit. It meant that I had the entire carriage, and indeed nearly the entire underground train, to myself. But there were about five of us on there, and I’m guessing there was a driver as well. I also opened the windows at the end of the carriage so that there was a hurricane blowing through, which made the temperature just right for me.

And when at Heathrow, it’s possible to see all the hundreds of people there….

For anyone interested, the best places to entertain yourself for a night at Heathrow T3 are the arrivals area for getting devices charged and the bus station for the best people watching. There are very few opportunities to charge devices in the bus station area though, so don’t get there if you’re short on power.

Whilst at the bus station, I watched two kids playing ‘paper, rock, scissors’ and they were keeping score. They were at 110-89 when I was watching, and the parents looked entirely exasperated. I can only begin to imagine how long that game had gone on before I got there.

Oh, and I also watched someone fall off the bench they were sleeping on. This kind of entertainment is unmissable to me, I had waited for nearly fifteen minutes for them to move far enough to fall. And I couldn’t stop them, I can’t awaken sleeping people, they might be furious.

Airport security opens at 04:45, which is later than Gatwick, and there are numerous benches for those who want to sleep. I didn’t, I wanted to stay away and read Facebook. See, who needs a hotel?