England is cold now... coming back from Amman yesterday it really hit that winter's here. Stepping off the plane and being hit by a wall of 6 degrees isn't that pleasant, and while I know 6 degrees isn't much, it felt like much less. Oh whatever.

1 month on and things are slowly getting into a routine. Get off from a flight, get home, feel really really tired, sometimes fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon and perchance wake up a few hours later, or then sometimes 17 hours later. Depends.

The Middle East really has been The Place to be (for me at least) in the last month. Damascus, Tehran (twice) and Amman (twice)... all of them nice, each unique, although I must say Amman seems to be the nicest, just in terms of ease of getting around, non-hassling and understanding people and things to do.

The pattern is being broken on Wednesday as I'm then scheduled to fly to Almaty, Kazakhstan (via Ekaterinburg, Russia) for a 5 day trip, which yes, sounds very exciting, and definitely should be, although it is a 9 hour flight (including the stop in Ekaterinburg) which is no doubt very tiring.

Anyhow, as I'm scheduled to be in Damascus over Christmas I decided to visit my family in Moscow for an early X-mas. Which means getting off my flight from Almaty on Sunday the 19th, a couple of hours on the ground at Heathrow and then hopping on a SWISS flight to Moscow (via Zurich of course). If I'm not going to look like s#&t when I get off the plane in Moscow after having been awake for over 24 hours (and in a plane either working or as a passenger for over 13hours) then I will be very very surprised indeed, although people I've met in the office when coming off flights have asked me where I'm going to... as I looked so fresh I couldn't have been coming off a flight!
Good thing I guess, although something I get on every single trip is at least a dozen comments ranging from "how old are you Pall?" to "I didn't know they employed 17 year olds!".
Aha, yet again, I'm the kiddo of the company.

Allrighty, off now to get some Xmas cards and inspiration for a few presents, although I'm doubtful that's going to happen today, this is Slough after all!