Poor old Ginny’s having a bit of a rough time. Soon after the dis-arse-terous dinner party, she hears some news requiring her to make a speedy return to Blighty. That led to me searching for the quickest route to get her home again. I managed to find a copy of the Imperial Airways flight schedules for August 1938, so after a drive to Cochin  and a 2 day train trip to Bombay I put her on the Tata Air Services flight to Karachi and thence to home with Imperial.

I was amazed to find what a tortuous journey it would have been. The plane from Karachi was a landplane with an itinerary of stopovers that reads like Orla Guerin’s passport – including Basra and Baghdad, Palestine and Alexandria and, after switching there to a boat plane, Athens, then Brindisi with a hotel stopover (hope she packed an evening gown), Rome, Marseilles, and Southampton, then the train to London. Blimey! Assuming the Tata flight to Karachi could be done in a day it would mean a total of about week’s journey. Exhausting.

Once safely in London Ginny has more bad news to face and then hears some interesting confessions from her aunt, Pud. I got so carried away with all this (and was feeling guilty after skiving for a couple of days) that today I’ve managed to write almost 5000 words. (And that includes sneaking downstairs and watching an episode of Father Ted). That brings me to a total of over 31k words or just over 25% of my target. Yipee! Next hurdle is the half way line.