Sunday 18th September

So here I am back in Larnaca where the sun continues to shine after a three day visit to the International College Spain (ICS) Madrid.  I am back ....... but it took 16 hours due to an air traffic controller strike in Athens.  It was all associated with Greece's financial situation and I guess everyone knows about it from the news.  Well they all did except the check in desk at Madrid airport, where everyone was queued having been called for all of a sudden 'delayed' flashed on the board.

With a connecting flight from Athens to Larnaca having a turn round of 45 minutes I thought I best enquire in my best Spanish LOL what was happening. I was told the delay in Madrid was to be two hours so I would miss the connection and they would re-book me on the later flight.  Hmmmm meant arriving 4 hours late in Larnaca but hey ho.  Eventually we go away from Madrid for the 3.5 hour flight to Athens.  Having got to Athens we circled the airport for 30 minutes and landed.  Much to my surprise my original flight was on final call so I rushed through security and got to the desk ...... but they would not let me on.  So I then had a four hour wait for the flight I had booked on.  Security would not let me back out so I was stuck without access to a coffee bar or anything.  I spent 40 Euros following the football results on my Blackberry until the battery gave out!  Eventually made it to Larnaca at 0215 having left the hotel at 0900 on Saturday morning.

Actually it was good trip and the school  looked fine, set in a very leafy and prosperous area of Madrid. The staff that i met were very welcoming.  However I will never get used to schools where students do not wear uniform and certainly there anything goes.  Some of the young ladies of Grades 11/12 where in my mind under and inappropriately dressed.  Lots of makeup too.  It was hard to distinguish sometimes who was the member of staff and who the student.  I am not sure if there will be need for me to go back again as they seemed OK with their admin software that does exactly the same as the one I promote for WCL.

Lillian as ever, had been busy during my time away with more 'black stone' steps made with pebbles from the beach.  As you can see from the picture she was hard at it all the time.

After the late night it was a lazy morning followed by  a full english breakfast at the local 'eatery'.  The real purpose of this being to use their wifi to download the Sunday Times on the ipad.  Swim, sun, hot tub and a walk inot the village to visit the Cottage pub to watch Man Utd v Chelsea.  more drinks on the patio before going off to bed. It was a hard day.