Mid-trip. Heathrow Lounge and off to S.A.

It’s a pretty restless flight to for Paul, who only manages to get a few uncomfortable hours of sleep.  Annette, with the aid of pharmaceuticals, does better.  Paul turns to in-flight entertainment for relief and enjoys “Bad Neighbors” with Seth Rogan, Zak Efron and Rose Byrne (“predictable plot elements, but raunchy and funny – 3 stars”).  We arrive at Heathrow for a 6 hour layover between flights…ugh.  Paul is feeling particularly tired and fat.  Apparently his pants shrank 3 sizes inflight from San Francisco.  It’s almost pitch dark at 4:00PM, reminding us of the short days on the trip to Ireland last year.  December + northern latitude = really short daylight time.

We take the shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 5 where there is a lounge at which we can use Annette’s Priority Pass (thank you Salesforce).  We bask in standard lounge comfort and snacks. —  peanuts, olives, cheese, beer, and a not too horrible soup.  Paul, who is able to sleep just about anywhere, does just that and regales the entire lounge audience with his snoring.  Several look at Annette, beseeching her to wake him to stop.  She shrugs.  Let him sleep. Finally he has to be woken up because the snoring and snorting grunts have become a public spectacle and the embarrassment is acute.  We catch the bus back to Terminal 1 and board leg #2 to Johannesburg.

We sit across the aisle from one another on Flight 57, which also gets off to a slightly late departure but promises on-time arrival with favorable winds.  Paul digs in for more TV – fabulously vulgar episodes of The Family Guy followed by The Maze Runner (“tries to be Hunger Games and fails – 2 stars”) and Annette actually gets through The 100 Foot Journey. Food’s a bit better on this leg – chicken and veggie curry which is surprisingly good.  Annette eats everything including the roll and sticky toffee pudding!