Since she needed assistance in traveling that far (and who wouldn't at 89) I flew back to the UK to pick her up. In trying to find the most painless way of doing this I decided that flying in and out without spending much time there would be the easiest. That way I wouldn't suffer the disruption of the time change and be jet lagged too much. For the most part that was true, though it was a lot of sitting in airplane seats - and, of course, all of them were in coach class.
So I left San Francisco on Wednesday night, arrived in London on Thursday afternoon, my step-brother brought mum down to Heathrow and we then flew back to San Francisco on Friday morning. We arrived back home in Sacramento on Friday afternoon - all told a 48 hour round trip for me. It wasn't too bad at all, though I don't think I will make a habit of it. Of course, my mum took it all in her stride and didn't have any problems at all. Here we are waiting in Heathrow for our flight...
I flew out to the UK on United and I flew back on Virgin Atlantic. That coupled with my earlier trip in the year on British Airways means I have sampled all the carriers serving that direct San Francisco to London route recently (sorry about my rather large carbon footprint). In these troubled times for the airlines, it was interesting to see how they are coping and what services they are trimming to save money. The best flight, by far, was Virgin. They seem to have maintained a reasonable level of service with an OK meal, a continuous series of snacks and drinks (at no extra charge), and a very good entertainment system. Poor old United on the other hand were by far the worst - an atrociously basic meal, an extra charge for wine and beer, a miserable entertainment system, and no extras (like a glass of water) between dinner and breakfast. The saddest thing was the puny ear-bud style headphones that United give you now, which rendered the entertainment system just about unintelligible so close to the engines as I was.
