What happened in Heathrow?

Thursday morning, and just as we were leaving to Heathrow we got a call from the embassy telling us that 'we're not allowed to carry anything with us except money – no handbags, no books, no mobile phones… nothing' so we just put all our handbags and stuff in our bags to be checked in, but we still didn't really know what's going on and just went.

We checked the radio in the car but they didn't say much about Heathrow except talk about the traffic which was more than usual but not bad. We went to check in our bags we could see that people were just getting the news because they had their handbags and were carrying stuff, the staff were giving out plastic bags for the essentials only which includes passport, wallets, sunglasses.

The interesting thing was that gulf air is in the same terminal with American Airlines which probably meant they need to check more with us. We went through three check points and they four because they were checked one last time before boarding (gate next to ours too.)

Everyone was confused and there were armed police everywhere. I didn't know what to expect or what might happen next, then something funny would happen and when I laugh I think 'well I be laughing when I later think of this day?'

By the time we got to the duty free I felt like I have queued more than I did in a very long time!

And all that before coffee!

The announcement said that we are to expect a 2 hours delay and flight to America 5 hours delay, ours was 3 hours late and I know that some flights to America were canceled when we were there. Then few hours after we left they closed the airport.

I don't mind flying in general but I was so jumpy on that one! I kept thinking and imagining things, funniest was when we were over Iraq and I could see lights and was watching outside the window when I saw this really bright dot, I closed my eyes, opened them and felt like it's coming toward me, I don't know why but I thought it must be a missile or a plane or something and it's going to hit us and we are going to die. In a second, I jumped from my chair, hit my sister who was sleeping next to me, tripped over nothing and fell down in front of my mother who was sitting in the chair behind me. When I got there I realized that the missile probably missed because I'm still alive so I just walked away.

The bright light turned out to be a full moon but because of the clouds I couldn't really see it and only saw a part of it – I can be very dramatic sometimes I guess.

Out of everything that happened what I minded the most was flying without books especially when I found that we could have bought books from the duty free, they never were more true when they said 'they will have to do with our movies and magazines'. I also so badly wished I had a camera.

We had problems in booking our flight so we had to change plane in Bahrain to Dubai, we missed that one but booked on a later one, it's a short flight but when we got to Dubai and because of congestion we kept flying and flying for more than 20 minutes, those were the one of the worst things, I just wanted to touch ground and we could see planes around us – not nice.

All in all, it's good to be home and I don't think I would be going to London anytime soon, for this to happen to us two years in a row when we didn't really plan or want to go to London in the first place!