I should have known what was coming when our plane from Gatwick was delayed two hours because the machine that brings the cases got stuck underneath the wings.

So we had to sit on the tarmac before a six hour flight, which meant we got to Qatar about midnight on Saturday. The only solace for me was I had my final beer for a month on the flight. 

Five games in now as I speak to you and what hasn't changed so far is the travel nightmares.  

Take the opening game on Sunday. Everyone was getting really stressed as we encountered the traffic around the stadium. It's the first game, so it's chaos. No one knows what they're doing. We got into the ground at 5:50pm for a 7pm KO. I am talking literally 10 minutes before the opening ceremony started, so they wouldn't let us pitchside.

We had to be kept in this access tunnel. I've travelled 3,000 miles and missed the opening ceremony of the World Cup so I wasn't a happy bunny, I can assure you. Some photographers were getting really irate. But it was the access tunnel for the performers so they wanted to keep it clear.

At Carrow Road I am always at the ground three hours in advance. To be that late for a World Cup fixture doesn’t sit well with me. Photographers have lots of admin to do, like charging batteries and sorting kit. At this rate if it continues we may have to cancel a few games we had planned to attend. 

Because of the issues with the transport system it is merging into one long round of eat, sleep, shoot, repeat. There is no time for anything else. 

Take the England game on Monday. There were only three early buses for all the media to get to the Wales game later that night so it was every man and woman for themselves. It was like a stampede.  

Then it took us an hour and 50 minutes to do 15 miles from the media centre to the stadium where France versus Australia took place on Tuesday night. Why? The bus driver got lost. I was a at the front of the bus with another photographer and we both had our sat navs out trying to direct him on our phones.

The way it is supposed to work here is there's a media centre (the Qatari National Convention Centre in Doha) which acts as a central hub and from there you can be ferried to all eight grounds. It is like being in Yarmouth, then going to Carrow Road, to come back to a game near Yarmouth. If we had a car we could reach most of the stadiums within 20 minutes from our flat. So on Tuesday we thought we had plenty of time after the Argentina versus Saudi Arabia game, but as I say the bus driver gets lost and we end up at the ground 75 minutes before kick-off.  

To give you an idea of how many media are out here, 3,000 attended that Saudi game at the same venue they will use for the final itself, where they expect the media contingent for the final to be 5,000.

I will not forget that game, and I don’t mean for the shock result. 

Photographers out here have to do our own ticketing system. Which basically means selecting where you want to position yourself pitchside to work. You get assigned to a priority group. I was in Group B for Germany versus Japan, with the national associations and national media in the top priority band. But at the Saudi game I had this ridiculous situation when my booking group opened online at 2pm for the next day’s games, just as the second half kicked off.

So I'm shooting the match with my laptop open next to me trying to get this accreditation sorted. I’m towards the end where Saudi were attacking, so I'm thinking, ‘Well, it is going to be quiet.' How wrong was I? They score twice and I don’t get either goal. I got the celebrations, which were as loud as I've heard in four years. Probably since Russia beat Spain at the last World Cup.

I’m actually surprised how many fans are out here. The atmospheres have been good at all the games I've done. The number of Argentine fans who have travelled is ridiculous. 

But I did get (Lionel) Messi jumping up in the air after he scored his first half penalty, which given who he is and this is his last World Cup is one of my favourite pictures I have ever taken. I just hope he gets a cold now and doesn’t play any more in the tournament.

But you go from that high to the low of missing the two Saudi goals. Here’s hoping to less drama over the next few days.