I can't tell you all the details of my escape, but what I can say is that a man whose number I'd been given met me in Urmia, an Iranian city near the Turkish border.
But I am sitting comfortably in Washington, staring out at a champagne sky, vaguely wondering if the ash will cross the Atlantic and listing all the hidden blessings of nature's bilious belch.
If I am lucky enough to sit in a comfy seat, I love sitting back, peering out at the cotton wool clouds and weeping over a nostalgic movie - I seem to cry a lot at 30,000 feet - while soldiering away on a bottle of wine.
