London - Day 17

our morning started quietly, apart from the sounds of hooves of tens of horses marching down seymour place. hubby & i got up for subuh around 730am (when the horses passed by - kinda like our alarm clock). we had a simple breakfast of sardines & toast. then we looked around the apartment to see if we had left anything.

hubby went out to get yet another luggage. the ones we have are already bursting at the seams and we were afraid they'd burst midair. yes, paranoid. while he went out, i fed and bathed the boys.

at 1030am, we left 48 crawford street with 3 large suitcases, 2 hand luggages, 4 backpacks for hubby, amir, asyraf and ariff and 2 strollers with buggy boards. we came bearing 2 luggages weighing 40kg, we went home with a load weighing 105kg!

the road to heathrow was smooth. but after that, the bumpy ride started. the bloke behind the counter was sarcastic and rude. he wouldnt let us take the 2 hand luggage on board and forced us to check them in. one of the luggage contained our laptops and wasnt even locked. then hubby was stopped at the scan machine and was asked to do a body search. apparently the button on his jeans was the culprit for setting off the scan machine - are people not allowed to buy jeans with buttons then?

we had a quick lunch at costa coffee just outside the boarding gate. i didnt have time to grab chocolates for friends. i just managed to drop by a cath kidston outlet to get a day bag. i was torn between the green with white dots and the flower bag but ariff chose the flower. i am still ruing the fact that i shouldnt have asked him to choose and should have just taken both!

the first leg of the journey, to doha, was a quiet one. the boys napped, ate, watched megaminds, played games and we rested. we got into doha almost midnight. the airport was still buzzing. the boys remembered the way to the play area and were happy to spend an hour there while i sat nearby and fed akmal. hubby quickly went to the ticket counter to try and get front seats for me and asyraf. we had to have a bassinet for akmal as he would only sleep lying down. unfortunately we couldnt get them.

when we were on board we saw that only 1 bassinet was being used. the front seats were taken by those without babies. there were a lot of infants at the back of the plane. so akmal and his parents had a terrible journey back home. akmal was constantly kicking and pushing the person holding him. he just wanted to sleep but couldn't sleep sitting down.

we arrived in klia at 2:30pm and were stuck at the baggage claim as our luggage took forever. once we got home we separated clothes to be washed, put away all the washed and new clothes and the boys' new toys.

so that's the end of our 17 days in sunny london. short trip but the 6 of us had a fantastic time, hoping we can do this again very soon...