A five minute window

This was the view from the hotel near the airport, taken on the day of departure.

We were so damned lucky. The pilot took off without the usual pep talk from him, and he later explained that he'd only had five minutes left before he would need to file a new flight plan, so when a window opened, he took it.

Five minutes into the flight, he received word that the UK Traffic control was having problems and no flights could leave the ground - but we were already in the air. We missed being stranded in Hamburg by five minutes.