Naked with a hat

This is the last day of my holiday.

I want to try to convey something of the chaos in the area near my hotel. It's up and coming, don't you know?  Everywhere you look there is grafitti and junk shops flea markets. It is impossible to describe the range of goods for sale, most of which would not make it into an English church jumble sale. (No idea about the rest of the UK, sorry.)

There was some consistency in what was for sale at the shop in my blip!

I spend part of the morning at the Athens Industrial Gas Museum. You may have expected me to be at the Acropolis Museum, but no, I was exploring the history of the gasworks. Our first family home was near gasworks in Hendon in Sunderland so this brought back memories of there.

Some of the old buildings include exhibitions of the industrial process; others provide exhibition space and a local radio station broadcasts from one.

I found a chemist's shop and was sold a bandage by the woman in the extra. It was applied skilfully by the man on the left. So glad to find them.

I took the Metro to the airport. This was not my best ever decision. Although the Metro is quite near to the hotel, I had to pull my suitcase on the road because the pavements were full of junk goods for sale.


Then I had to stand for the whole journey in a crowded carriage. It turned out that my ticket was incorrect. The woman in the ticket office glanced at me and assumed I was over 65 - must have been the tired face - and sold me a 5 euro ticket instead of a 10. The notices on the Metro were clear that you must have the correct ticket. Thankfully there was no inspection.

At the airport, all went smoothly, although I had to take every lens out of the camera bag and remove the lens caps and the backing caps. The security guard was adamant that I had 4 lenses, when I had 3. She poked a plastic bag containgin 2 cereals bars and demanded to know what was inside. They are clearly very, very anxious about terrorism and who can blame them.

The first flight to Amsterdam was a trial. I was by the window, except there wasn't one. The man in the middle seat was very large and spilled over onto my seat, both where we sat and on the arm between us. Despite my best efforts I could not create separation between us, so it was like sitting next to a heat generating hot water bottle. I do not want to sound "fattist" but I did wish he had sat in the aisle seat.

 The flight to Newcastle was delayed a little. One very kind man was concerned about my hand and made sure that I did not have to lift my luggage into the overhead locker. He also alerted the cabin crew about me. Very kind.

I made it home at 1130 which felt like 0130 and was delighted to see that Mum looks so much better than when I left. The antibiotics worked and she has no cough to mention.

My own bed tonight - say no more. Zzzzzz.