Finals and the gear's down but are the flaps?

[Magic90]

Hello one and all - This is my first blog but perhaps not my last as i progress through my licenses in the months sorry years ahead. You will gather from my query that I am not of the Flight Deck persuasion or civilian crew, but ex-military with my last flying tour of some 3000hrs on type. I felt I should mention this, because at least I have sat on the flight deck for more ccts than I can remember watching student and staff pilots bring it all together for the final 20 seconds…which is where my question lies. Very recently I was returning from a delightful 10 days in the West Indies on a 777. Slightly ahead of schedule were ushered directly into Gatwick; I wasn’t paying too much attention but as we descended through the cloud base we had a quite a bumpy introduction to the UK weather, it’s always difficult to judge height when not directly next to a window but I believe we were on long finals. The flaps were stepped down and the gear extended and whilst occasionally watching the aircraft telemetry, I followed us down until I could see the perimeter fence pass beneath, at this point I noticed that the flaps appeared not to be fully extended (i was sitting adjacent to the trailing edge), however, as the tarmac appeared the flaps moved to their final position. I clocked the speed at 156mph c.132 kts and then 5-8 secs later we hit the tarmac, port u/c first with lots of screeching - then the stbds hit flowed by, I can only assume, much tramping of the rudder bar to keep us on the dotted line. It was, quite a lively landing, and one I would not want to repeat in a hurry - i done landings with 33 kts across and not been as concerned. So my questions are: 1. At what point should the 777 be in its final landing configuration? 2. Was the landing speed good (it felt a little hot)? Although flap 30 (?) was eventually set what affect to the aircraft does this late setting have to its handling? This is purely for my own edification, but it may also remind others that FRCs are there for a reason…Wg Cdr Spry would have loved this one! Thanks for reading.