Last week I had couple of assignments in Europe - which involved plenty of travel, lots of shooting of pictures, nice weather - but not much of sleep. Here once again a little re-cap of my mad-cap adventures in the continent...

First job was in Italy on Wednesday evening, when I shot the Women's EuroBasket 2013 qualifying game between Italy and Finland. This was one of those rare occasions where I had booked to stay in the country for a day after the job as well, which gave me a day-off which I duly spent laying by the pool and watching Italy vs Germany in Euro2012 with the people of Pontinia. Conclusion from this extra day in the country was that I really should have more of these, especially when the hotel has a pool and temperatures are up to 37 degrees!!

Like so many times, after relaxation comes the hard travel and work - so here we go!

- Friday 10am, check out from the hotel and head for the 80 mile drive to Rome Airport, luck seems to be with me as the south-bound lanes are grid-locked but I am heading quite smoothly up north. Return the rental car and join the 'bag drop' queue for the flight, air-con seems to be working at half power inside the terminal as it doesn't feel much fresher than it was outdoors.

- Friday 2pm, flight to Dusseldorf is delayed due to the thunderstorms rolling over Europe, so it takes a good 90 minutes delay before take-off - this will cut it close with my connecting flight to Birmingham.

- Friday 6pm, safely in Dusseldorf and catching the flight to Birmingham OK.

- Friday 8pm, landed in Birmingham and getting ready to continue the journey, ahead of me (and my wife who kindly became the 2nd driver) a long drive from Birmingham to Luxembourg. First part of the journey down to Folkestone to catch the EuroTunnel at 1am - cross the channel and start driving down south. Music choices from the radio stations are MNM and BEST - by about 5.30 I am hitting the wall, just have to pull-over and rest for a while at a petrol station. Quick rest for an hour or so - and off we go for the remaining 90 minutes of driving.

- Saturday 8am - Luxembourg! Quiet feeling place at this time of the morning, the reception at the hotel kindly lets us check-in this early in the morning. After a quick shower, my wife hits the bed and gets some sleep... me, I am off to photograph the Finnish teams practice session at the gym. Half asleep driving through the town and I somehow manage to get something out the training session, back to the hotel around 12.30. Now the only thing I am able to do is.. edit some photos and video, before crashing out on the bed for three hours of sleep.

- Saturday 4pm - finding a restaurant to have a bite to eat, and then off to the Luxembourg vs Finland EuroBasket 2013 qualifying game - shoot the game, do the post-game video interviews and have a quick chat with the players as this was my last game with them this summer. Then a drive back to the hotel, where it is time to edit some more pictures for the clients, as well as finishing the video interview edits. Around 11.30pm it is time to get some sleep.

- Sunday 5am - wake-up and check-out of the hotel, long drive to Calais to catch the EuroTunnel back to the UK with the train departing around 10am. Catch the train OK - and now another 3 1/2 hours to drive to Stratford-Upon-Avon to shoot Birmingham City Ladies FA WSL game against Everton.

- Sunday 1.50pm - arrive to the ground few minutes before kick-off, quickly rushing through to the pitch-side and sit down to photograph the game. With Birmingham losing the game, it took a while to be able to do all the post game stuff - so it was around 5.30pm before we started to drive the last hour of the journey back to Great Malvern.. where we arrived at 6.30pm.

- Sunday 7pm - sitting down with a 'TV dinner' and wondering about the crazy travels of the past days... through half closed eyelids I try to keep track of the Italy vs Spain game.. but it all proves too much as by 9pm the call of my own bed is too strong to resist.

There you have it - a short story of my travels in the past week. Next travels (abroad) starting next Wednesday when I am off to Bulgaria for two weeks..