On the 14th August 2003 I left Skegness on the train heading for Heathrow airport.  A train de-railment at Peterborough was the first problem.

Then in my room at the Hilton Heathrow on Thursday night I learnt of the power blackout in New York.  My flight on Friday morning was delayed by approx 1 hour because of the problems in New York, no planes had been able to take off so there was no where for us to dock.  Eventually we took off at 9.45am not knowing where we were going to land.

I was very fortunate, at check-in I was told that my seat had been changed.  I feared that I would no longer have my promised window seat.  In fact I had been upgraded to Club Class seat 17K.  This was wonderful with an electrically adjustable armchair taking up the width of 1.5 ordinary seats and so much legroom I could not reach the next seat even when fully reclined.  I even had 4 windows of my own to look out of while having my champagne breakfast.

Typical flight data was 38000ft, 575mph and -57°C

At 3.30pm BST the captain announced that we would in fact be landing at Newark.  There was no room at JFK.  The crew on some of the planes that had been able to land the day before had stayed on board over-night.

After finding a bus to take me to New York I eventually located my hotel.  The power was not yet on and so I could not check-in.  So I had a wander around the area and saw the police having to direct the traffic at every junction because of the traffic lights failure.  Everyone was most helpful.  Eventually the power came back on and the usual lights were brightening Times Square.

On Saturday morning I took a bus tour of Downtown and went to the World Trade Centre site.

In the afternoon I caught the ferry to the Statue of Liberty

Saturday evening I went to see Aida

Unfortunately the lifts were not operating in the Empire State Building during my visit to New York following the power cuts.

Sunday was a bus tour to uptown followed by a walk through Central Park.  A beautiful haven in the middle of New York, which many runners and cyclists were using.  Then in the evening I took the night time bus tour, unfortunately it rained, but I am pleased I went on it.

On Monday I was up a 5am to catch the 5.50am bus to JFK and Concorde.  I arrived at about 7am and found the wonderful Concorde lounge: a champagne breakfast again.  The 3 flight crew came into the lounge area to introduce themselves and answer any questions, very good PR.

Then it was off on Concorde.  The acceleration down the runway was incredible but shortly after take-off the engines had to be throttled back and we turned sharply left to keep the noise levels down.  After a few more minutes power was increased to take us up to about 500 mph then 2 after-burners were engaged giving a nudge in my back followed by the final 2 to take us through the sound barrier.  Soon we were cruising at Mach 2, 1380mph, 54500ft, -50°C.  Too soon (3 hours 17 minutes later) we were landing at Heathrow's northern runway; all good things come to an end.