Marathon

First of all, thank you to everyone, real and virtual for your good wishes on my speedy recovery from what has been a painful but thankfully short lived spell of immobilising back trouble.  Not fully recovered yet, but I was able to get to school this morning to see my classes before school closes for the Autumn break.

Although the flight isn't until 21.00, I used the 16.00 school bus to the airport - Friday afternoon traffic in Istanbul can be manic so I'd rather get there early.  An uneventful (which is always good) four hour terminal stay, a drink with two colleagues waiting to fly to Lyons and a very expensive and less than delicious pizza before finally taking off, some 40 minutes behind schedule.

It's always horrid on the scheduled 21.00 flight, it feels like the small hours when we land, and the cabin is always kept at chocolate melting temperature for some reason - and tonight's discomfort exacerbated by a full on return of lower back pain as I just couldn't get comfy in those narrow bucket seats, and fairly sure I annoyed the crew by having legs in the aisle much of the time when they kept walking past, trying to stretch my back,  but I eventually found some comfort by sitting on my haunches on the floor against the wall in the cooler space where the crew normally hang out, and when they realised I was in pain, rather than acting like one, they were happy to let me stay there.

The usual bus then taxi had me walking through my Essex front door at 01.30 UK time, 03.30 Turkey time, some 20+ hours after waking up. Very glad I made it, but very, very tired, so, straight up the wooden hill after  setting my alarm for the semi final in the morning.