Saturday 2 June 2012

The Days After 1 Jun

Dalaman Airport is not a very nice place, for a number of reasons. One is that you are forced to spend a couple of hours there at the end of your holiday which means the holiday is over. Another is that the food and drinks are a ridiculous price. Don't they realise that if the prices were a bit more reasonable people might actually spend some money. We expect airports to be expensive but 15YTL for a beer is just too much. The staff just sit behind the counters and polish their fingernails and try to look busy while the punters avoid eye contact and try to make themselves comfortable. Also, there always seems to be a delay which makes things a lot worse, and there was one on this occasion. 2.00am is a good flight time for me. On holiday you can often find yourself awake at that time so you shouldn't be too tired at take-off and if you can sleep on the flight 4 and a half hours is a decent flight duration to get some quality zeds in. Plenty when you can top it up at home later. A two hour delay means you get a lot more tired at the airport and must be alert for boarding etc. It was poison for me. I couldn't sleep in the departure lounge and I couldn't sleep on the plane. The delay meant nobody could pick me up but the train was a decent alternative. I struggled on the concourse and up and down a number of lifts with the bags and the bike-in-a-box but got to the airport station OK. I actually used my phone as a wi-fi source and downloaded the blog onto the little lappy-toppy thingy while on the train and got a taxi home from the station in Wigan.


Siobhan made me a cup of tea and some cheese crumpets as I eased back into Wigan life. I emptied the case in instalments while re-associating myself with the workings of the remote controls and nodding off here and there. I decided to go to bed in the afternoon but couldn't sleep at first. When I did eventually drop off I jumped up half an hour later when Tom came in and decided to tough it out. I was delighted to be able to put the bike together and get it looking good again and after a bite to eat we settled down to watch the Wigan youngsters demolish the world rugby league champions, Leeds. After the rugby real beer beckoned and I met Tom and Paul in the Royal Oak. Three pints of nectar later I was home and enjoying a large-ish single malt before retiring, after a ridiculously long day, to my own bed again. I don't know what happened in the next ten hours.  

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