35,000 feet and a pork pie

I am generally regarded as being what they call a home-bod.

For those unfamiliar with the term it alludes to a person who rarely ventures out by choice, preferring the comforts of hearth and lounge to what could be regarded as anything more adventurous.

Some may view this in the same vein as a couch potato or lazy sloth but to those comfortable with the label it is actually a positive thing and should not be derided.

I am therefore reeling in self-amazement at what I have done and where I have been in just the last 8 days.
Take a week ago today. A nice early start to a saturday in May with a four hundred mile plus round trip to the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, London. It was a long trek with a return home extending into the wee small hours not helped by the decision of contractors to dig up the M1 Motorway close to Sheffield overnight not having realised that 35,000  football fans would be making their way back up north to Hull through a crimped and pinched single lane of an otherwise three lane highway.

Within 12 hours I was again on the national motorway network but this time heading due west to Manchester and the proximity of the airport. Monday morning, early at 6am saw me on a Boeing 737-300 in economy class flying over London, Paris and the Swiss Alps into Pisa for a city break in the historic Firenze or Florence.

By friday I was back on my home territory and today I have spent the best part of the day in Leeds attending a training and induction session amongst 13,000 others for my stint as a Volunteer on Stage 2 of this years Tour de France during its Grand Depart in Yorkshire.

A momentous few days indeed with by my reckoning, and assisted by the announcement of the Jet2.com pilot for the European leg, an accumulated distance covered of 2000 miles.

Other statistics for the epic week, well, about 2 gallons of coffee, four packets of savoury snacks, three pork pies, five sandwiches either home made or shop-bought, two packets of chewing gum, a greek salad, authentic Tuscan cuisine of calzone, spaghetti carbonara and pizza, lots of bread coated in olive oil and balsamic , prunes and apricots, shredded wheat, lemon sorbet and three Tic-Tacs.

I feel that I have graduated to the status of a well seasoned traveller but after all, home is still best. I may have overdone it on the Tic-Tacs.