Tuesday 27 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
The longest journey - flashback #1
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Home
Wednesday afternoon. We can’t believe it. We are aboard BD 808 to Heathrow Terminal 1
Four of us. Home. Four of the 150,000 British nationals (according to Tom saw it on the BBC World News) who were stranded in Europe. That’s enough people to fill seven hundred and fifty Airbus 330s.
In the warm spring sun we walk across the tarmac to board the small, shiny and perfectly formed 47 seater Embraer ERJ-145. Relieved.
Grateful to everyone that helped us along this four part odyssey especially close colleagues in London office, Natalie and Rupa (our Athene and Circe)and Sali and the team in office in Dubai.
Our lives are easily fractured. Certainty is unwittingly violated by the natural order of things and the fallout from Iceland’s volcanoes will continue.
End this story from Thom Gunn's poem
ON THE MOVE ‘Man, you gotta Go’
At worst, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.
Hello from Hannover
Tuesday 20 April 2010
A bridgehead into Europe
After the distress of the Milan cancellation we hung around the airport, free wi-fi, surfing for options to get into Europe from Istanbul. Some friend Italians, victims of the same abandonment, offered us seats on a coach laid on by their local Consulate. So we was hanging with the Italians waiting for coach and heard a flight to Hamburg announced. Lara runs over to the SunExpress ticket desk and secures four.
Hey presto we are now in Hanover. They switched airports just before we took off.
Well it begins with ‘H’ and still in Germany and that’s in Europe and that is well cool.
"Babe, when its lovin’ if it’s not rough it’s not fun" . . *
* Poker Face – Lady Gaga
Istanbul Tuesday Morning
Illustrated: The dinner party at Anemon; Golden Horn; A new dawn at the Best Western Hotel.