My flights gate number showed up early on the screen at Terminal 5. This usually means that you have to decamp from the lounge and head to one of the other areas of the terminal, the B and C gates. For my flight C65 was shown and this was my first time in the C gates. German flight usually leave from the main terminal A gates in my experience.

Faced with a late evening flight after a long day, I took the train. You can now choose to walk after Heathrow opened the previously closed walkways.

The train was not full and I followed the uniformed crew to the front of the train for a fast exit to the lifts. Tip: At T5 99% of the time it is faster to take the lifts than go on the escalators.

After about 15 minutes I arrived at the C gate:

There were great views of the airport from here, with its floor to ceiling windows. Plane spotting amused me until it was time to board.

Qantas A380:

BA 744:

And my tiny plane:

We boarded on time and despite being full, the A320 was ready to go on time. And then we had the loo crisis!

None of the loos would flush. CRISIS is not an understatement.

Heads were scratched, engineers were called and eventually the Captain got out the manual. I knew things were bad then!

It turns out that there is some special switch at the back of the plane – that’s just not the most obvious place to put it – which turns the flush on and off. Once changed, we were off. Not too late.

The crew were friendly, served the typical cold salad on this flight:

It was pretty tasty. Drinks were refreshed and we arrived a little late.

Tegel as always performs admirably, 5 minutes from getting to the gate to being in the taxi. (No checked bags of course, that can add 30 minutes to the escape).