My goodness but that was a long day! I think Friday lasted for about 33 hours, counting from its start at midnight in Japan, through to its finish at the following midnight in England.
We were travelling for most of that time, although in reality a great many hours were spent sitting or standing around waiting for something to happen.
Largely, it was uneventful.
We left the hotel at a little after 07:30 and ambled over to the airport. I upgraded us to Premium Economy for the flight to Frankfurt. They were offering upgrades at a reduced rate and it bagged us seats at the very front of the Premium Economy section with no one in front of us and lots of room to stretch out. I have been wondering why I didn't just buy Premium Economy tickets in the first place - but I don't think they were available when I booked the flights back in July. The Osaka to Frankfurt route only introduced them a few weeks ago. I'll certainly book it next time.
We had quite a long wait for the flight once we had checked in, so breakfast and then a wander up and down to get in a little bit of exercise. We got into Frankfurt ahead of schedule so there was no rushing about to make the connecting flight. The only drama that occurred all day was when there was a kerfuffle up ahead of us on the plane to Manchester. Someone had been taken ill. It was the first flight I had ever been on where a call has gone out for a medical professional to assist. Despite the fact that the flight was absolutely packed, no medical professional came forward. I think that most oft the passengers were business people returning to the UK from meetings or from working away for the week. The Poorly Passenger recovered without medical intervention and walked off the plane when we landed. His neighbour got moved up to one of the few vacant seats on the flight, which happened to be in Business Class. I don't suppose he minded all that much!
We missed the direct train from Manchester to Chesterfield by five minutes. They only go once an hour, and there didn't seem to be much to be gained by going to Sheffield and changing to another train there. Certainly not when you took lugging heavy suitcases about with you. So we bought a (very hot!) pasty each and just waited it out. We took a taxi from the station to our place and walked in through the door in Tupton about 23 hours after we had walked out of the door of the hotel in Osaka.
We celebrated by cracking open the 5 litre box of white wine we had bought in Costco in Gifu and lugged all the way back with us (we had, with regret, left what was in the other 5 litre box in the hotel in Osaka. We didn't have the space to bring them both back).
And that was the end of what had felt like a Never Ending Friday.
We spent today sorting things out and hitting the supermarket to stock up with vegetables and a few other useful things. And cat food. We are expecting Marlo to come home tomorrow, although I'm not sure he's going to want to. I think he has been enjoying being spoilt by Freyja, Simon and Aidan. He has certainly seemed very comfortable in the photos Freyja has been sending us.
Right. Bedtime. I hope I sleep as well tonight as I did last night.
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