Inevitably, though slowly, departure day arrived. Mavis ran the Settle contingent to Manchester Airport, and after a brief leave-taking we wandered into the terminal where, as expected, Helen was waiting. Check-in was quick, and the wait didn’t seem too long, particularly as the flight left on time. I failed, yet again, to get any sleep, and I was not alone in this. As the cabin lights came back up Helen ran a survey of what we had been watching / listening to: she’d been watching ‘The Life of Pi’, Merrilyn had watched ‘Hitchcock’, Alan had been listening to Mark Knoffler, I’d heard the Beethoven Ninth (twice !), and Linda had dozed. No conclusions can be drawn ! Our sojourn under the blue dome of Abu Dhabi wasn’t too protracted, and after another relatively pleasant flight we
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