In message . li, at
22:36:32 on Tue, 19 Oct 2010, Tom Anderson
remarked:
My usual American destination is in Connecticut, so i tack on a
weekend visiting friends in New York. If i'm going to **** away my
friends' childrens' futures in a stream of carbon dioxide, i might as
well be sociable about it.

Just shows how one size doesn't fit all. I'd rather spend the weekend
between two trips back at home with those children, than partying with
friends in some distant City. And they [my children] would rather I did
that too. There are times when I could easily spend a month "on the
road", if the rule was that I only went home if there were more than two
days of "down time".

It's not always like that (I've only been away one week in the last two
months) but here's a sample from earlier this year, and despite skipping
a couple of the meetings never more than 2 days at home; return travel
in the evenings unless otherwise noted. The figures in square brackets
are the time at home, when I'm apparently supposed to be partying/
sightseeing abroad!

April

Thu 22nd - London
Fri 23rd - Brussels (cancelled}
[1]
Sun 25th - travel to Brussels by train
Mon 26th - Brussels
[1]
Wed 28th - train & fly to Madrid
Thu-Fri 29th/30th - Madrid

May

[1]
Sun 2nd - fly to Prague
Mon-Fri 3rd/7th - Prague
[1]
Sun 9th - fly to Geneva
Mon-Tue 10th/11th - Geneva
Wed 12th - Amsterdam
Thu 13th - fly home
Fri 14th - Birmingham
[2]
Mon 17th - travel to Geneva, by train because of ash cloud
Tue 18th - Geneva
Wed 19th - all day back by train (would have flown Tue evening)
[1]
Fri 21st - Brussels {cancelled}
Sat-Sun 22nd/23rd - travel to India
Mon-Sun + Mon-Fri 24th-4th - India (no days off at all)
Sat 5th - travel back from India

I did look at Madrid-Prague by train (in case of ash-cloud), and
Geneva-Amsterdam, but there weren't the spare hours available.

The only train which might have made a difference would be a
hypothetical sleeper back from Amsterdam late on the 12th (I had an
evening meeting). Taking up most of the 13th, even with 4hrs
Amsterdam-London plus 2.5hrs London-Nottingham [when taking into account
dwell time at St Pancras on the way back] would have been a repeat of
spending two days on train the following week, and there's a limit to
how much fun one can have...
--
Roland Perry