I’m sitting in the rather cramped and crowded Air France lounge in departures at Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos (anyone interested in the recent history of this country should take the time to Google that name in order to understand its incendiary value for many people over here) and my flight to Paris CDG in due to leave in a little over two hours from now.

“Don’t you know your Thursdays from your Fridays?” I hear you call.  I do (well, most of the time I do) but, as chance would have it, tomorrow is a national holiday – it’s Democracy Day and tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of when the military melted back into their barracks – and so there’s not much in the way of work being done in these parts.  For some reason that I still can’t quite fathom, it only became clear to everyone round about Tuesday that Friday was a holiday and then the plan for some of us to come into the office anyway was abandoned yesterday when it was announced that the painters were taking over the place for the day.  Taking a break from painting the town red, I suppose.

This being Lagos and so not the place to spend an afternoon promenading gaily about the joint, I reckoned it was time to contact the travel agent back in London to see if they could find a seat for me on tonight’s flight.  They did and so here I am, ready for an airborne and, one assumes, largely sleep-free night before I reacquaint myself with the temperatures back home which are about half what they are here.

At least now I have the joys of taking the kids to camogie down at Vinnie’s on Saturday morning to look forward to and I should be well ready for the action on Sunday where Armagh and Tyrone are almost sure to come to blows, Brolly and Spillane could well do likewise and where we should find out who we’ll be facing in the Connacht semi-final in three weeks time.  Hasta luego, hombres.