The next morning, bleary eyed and freezing we scraped the thick layer of the frost off the car and headed in the general direction of the long stay car park, doing our best to follow the directions the hotel reception had given us in the feeble glow of the cars courtesy light.
Half an hour later we were hopelessly lost. The immense complex of Heathrow’s outlying maze had undergone some major transformation that seemed to involve only putting up barricades and random diversion signs.
“Turn round, go right then left, then left again past Julian and you’re there,” the guy in the high visibility jacket sounded helpful, but at that time in the morning, who can say.
We ploughed on through the freezing morning air, tormented by the boom of departing jumbo’s overhead. It was now 6am, far too close to the flight time for me to be my usual positive self and prompting H to resort to random obscenities.
“Look!” I prodded at the car windscreen and drab grey of the rising dawn. “The Jury Inn!”