As far as long haul flights go, this British Airways one from Buenos Aires to London Heathrow wasn't too bad. The flight was going to be about half an hour early so the lights came on about 4am for the crew to serve some breakfast.

In the end, the plane arrived about 15 minutes early in Terminal 5. We'd never been in this terminal before, the flight to Cancun at the beginning of our trip had left from Gatwick. The terminal was huge and took us ages to even get to the baggage hall. We seemed to drop down about four levels on escalators before taking a train, to then come back up about four levels. I'm sure the building was an architects dream and it certainly looked nice, but it didn't seem that practical. Maybe that was just the thoughts of a weary traveler, first thing in the morning.

Passport Control was simple, we both had biometric passports so we just needed to put them in the reader and have camera check our face. It took Maria a bit longer to get through because she had her spectacles on at first which upset the retina scan. After she took her glasses off, she then couldn't read the monitor which was miles away. They really need to think about that minor defect.

We collected our bags and headed for departures. Our next flight to Edinburgh wasn't until midday so we asked if we were able to change to either of the two earlier flights. Both were fully booked so we checked in for our original flight. It was fully booked too and we didn't even have seats together, the only seats left were middle seats and Maria would sit in the seat behind David.

There are two entrances into T5's Security, one at the northern end of the building and the other at the south. They have signs which tell you how busy each one is and we opted for the southern side which was supposedly half as busy as the other. It was a long process which started with a photograph before stepping into the Security Zone.

They have new machines for screening hand luggage and when they are not happy about something, the entire tray is automatically moved into a secure area for manual inspection. David's bag was selected for a manual search and he was in a queue with seven people before him. With only one person carrying out the check, it's no wonder the time to get through security has increased so much. The guy in front of David had taken his laptop out his bag (as required) but laid his bag on top - on the x-ray machine it looked like the laptop was in the bag and hence the manual search.

The guy doing the search, despite what some of the others in the queue thought, was really nice. He started off by showing David the x-ray image and telling him what had triggered the alert. In the very centre of the image with various shapes of grey shades was 9 black disks in a 3x3 array. David laughed when he saw it because it was far from being anything sinister, it was a box of Alfajores biscuits that we'd bought in Buenos Aires airport. The security guy laughed as well once he'd seen the box and almost apologetically said he would still need to empty the backpack regardless. It was no big deal, David had already waited 20 minutes in the queue, another few minutes wouldn't cause an issue especially when we had 6 hours to kill.

Six hours is quite a long time to spend in an airport waiting for a flight unless, of course, that airport is Changi, in Singapore. If you haven't been there before, it's recommended - it has gardens, a movie theatre, x-box consoles, the most comfortable seats and couches and best of all, everything is free. It's almost like being in a resort hotel and if you have at least 4 hours between flights, there is a free shuttle service taking you into downtown for a bit of sightseeing.

Heathrow is definitely no Changi, but T5 was not too bad. We had a wander round the shops without the intention of buying anything and then sat around for a bit while Maria tried to have a nap. David was getting hungry by mid morning, the plane breakfast had been served shortly after 4am, so we headed for the pub for a bacon butty smothered in HP sauce and a beer.

Our plane was a bit late in boarding due to the incoming flight arriving late, but we were finally boarding but not without another photo at the gate. The plane was delayed even more because people had way too much hand luggage with them and there was no way to fit it all in the plane. After about 20 minutes, the crew conceded that the half dozen or so passengers with big cases, that wouldn't fit under the seat, would have to put them in the hold. Getting them out of the plane, tagged and stowed in the hold took another 15 minutes. The plane had then lost its takeoff slot and by the time we took off, we were over an hour late.

There was a bit of tail wind so the pilot managed to cut down on the lateness of our arrival. It didn't knock that much of the flight time so we still had plenty of time to sit back and enjoy a couple of glasses of wine. As we flew over the border into Scotland, we could see snow on the hills.

David's parents were waiting for us at the airport, the plan had actually been to call them when we got our bags and they would drive in from free parking just off the airport. Edinburgh airport charges even to drop someone at door, never mind actually parking up. Without a call from David they eventually parked up and came into the airport building only to discover the flight delay.

Even though everyone on the flight seemed to have hand luggage only, it took ages for the bags to come out. Maybe that's why all the frequent flyers only had hand luggage which caused the boarding and departure delay. With bags in hand, we headed for the car park and the drive south to David's parents house in Melrose.

The traffic was light and there wasn't any snow or ice on the roads so we made good time heading south into the Borders. We had originally planned to have lunch at The Lodge in Carfrae Mill but with the delayed flight it was about 4pm by the time we were nearby. A bit late for lunch and a bit early for dinner. They would have cooked if we went in, but we decided just to continue driving to Melrose, it was beginning to get dark and the weather was getting a bit worse. We didn't really want to be driving in the dark, in freezing conditions and in the rush hour of Edinburgh commuter traffic.

It was nice to be able to put our bags down and empty them out knowing that we weren't going anywhere for a few days. We had a nice comfy bed and bathroom full of fluffy towels and toiletries. There was a box of stuff that had been stored here while we were away and it was almost like Christmas pulling out the things we had almost forgotten about. David was reunited with his favourite jeans & Tennants Beer glasses and Maria got her engagement ring back on her finger - two happy people.

Traveling is a great adventure, but it's also hard sometimes living out a backpack and being always on the go. It's nice to stop for a while and recharge the batteries.

The bar opened at 5pm and David's dad brought out some cans of Tennants to fill the glasses and a bottle of wine for the women. We toasted our health and our return to Scotland and drained our glasses, a few times, while dinner cooked in the oven.

It had been a long day especially after the long flight from South America so it wasn't long after dinner before we were looking forward to our bed.