Day 1 - Wee Al’s first flight

Hello again and welcome to G&T Chapter 13! 13 isn’t so unlucky though as you have the better looking, better craic…. and less boring/factual one of the 2 of us writing again. You can decide who that is!

It’s been a while as we missed out on our usual summer holiday in 2024 as we, well I… was a bit busy popping out our newest addition, ‘wee’ Alexander. Anyway, for this chapter we are off to Perth, Australia, for 2 weeks to visit my bestie, Aoife.

Usually the day or morning before going on holiday, I’m getting my getting my nails done, doing an everything shower and ensuring all is ready for the holiday. This time it was all about Alexander, I needed everything to keep him alive for 2 weeks in the heat. His stuff took up more than expected and as we rushed out the door to head to the airport we realised we were going to need to bring another suitcase. As you all can imagine, Louis’ stress levels began to rise at this point so it was important everything was quickly under control. FYI- If Louis ever starts to scratch his head, you’ve probably annoyed him. Plenty of scratching was done this time.

After dropping off our other wee fur baby - well actually only fur baby, Alexander is still working on his hairline - Pip, off to her Granny Debs where she’ll be staying for the first few nights, Uncle Rodger dropped us down to City of Derry airport. We checked in our bags and were happily greeted by a lady who allowed us to skip right to the front of the security queue. Once through, we all enjoyed a drink, Gin… duh & milk, and waited to be called for our flight.

The flight to London was short and Alexander was the biggest flirt, smiling at all the other passengers and keeping up his best-ever-baby status. He slept for most of it and not one tear. We touched down and thought flip, this whole travelling with a baby is very easy. No queuing, everyone smiles at you and offers to help and you definitely get special treatment from the air hostesses. Fingers crossed the long haul fights tomorrow go just as smoothly!

For the night, we stayed in Sofitel Hotel right beside Terminal 5. Just a short bus from the plane to the Terminal 2 and a train from Terminal 2 to 5, Alexander had ticked off his first plane, bus and train all within 15minutes.

At check in we were upgraded to the junior suite as the lovely male receptionist must have fancied me our something… or Louis. Then again, we do have 400+ followers on Gin and Travel so perhaps it was that (no we didn’t miss a 0).

We chilled in the room before heading down for dinner. Louis had a margarita pizza (shock), I had a tofu ramen (delish), and Alexander had some puréed Sweet Potato (boke). Alexander was a bit tired and at first, wasn’t playing ball. After a dander around the restaurant with his daddy, he returned to the table fast asleep, allowing us to enjoy dinner and a glass of wine.

To pass sometime before bed, we headed back to Terminal 5 for a dander. Not many shops were open, Marks and Spencer and my favourite shop ever… WHSmith. We checked out some books, put them back on the shelf and got a tin of wine each from M&S to have back in the room once Alexander was asleep. It was disgusting, little crystal things had formed at the bottom of the tin so when you took a sip you got some surprises.

We headed back to the room, put Alexander down for the night and we jumped into bed and watched the rugby, before drifting off to Sky news. It’s a big day tomorrow. Goodnight! 😴