Denis island stuff – pictures

 

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And all too soon…

it was over and it was home to the sprawling metropolis of Victoria

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Denis island stuff – words

Two idle days of really not having to do anything other than drift between the restaurant, beach and daybed. My weather wariness was unwarranted, the rain gave way to hot sun that was nearly our undoing as we decided to walk to the earmarked snorkel area  – it didn’t look that far on the map – and did we have water? No. Did anyone know where we’d gone? No. It’s a miracle I even got one badge in the Guides. I’m also not so good with tide tables either as the water was barely deep enough to reach my knees and I’m 3 foot (boom boom). Still all the better to see sharks coming, shame about the rest of the wonderful marine life for which Seychelles is known that we got nowhere near seeing. I settled on just eating fish instead.

The beach was stunning, china white sands strewn with silvered driftwood and hardly a person in sight. Having finally returned back to our pad ( I hope no-one responded to my SOS sign) we lay on our sunbeds, the water lapping gently nearby, watching fairy terns dive and hide among the branches of the tree that stood grandly in our villa’s garden and opened a bottle of wine, sigh.

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Day 1 The Return

Typical, the Piccadilly Line suspended between Boston Manor and Hammersmith, the latter of which we’d been advised was our stop and to get a cab from there. Finding that it was was closed, we were instructed to alight at Boston Manor, as it was closer, and catch a taxi from there instead – prompting puzzlement, why not have done that in the first place? So thanks to London Transport, we had a £6 taxi journey that was 10 minutes to our abode #1. And what an arrival, 36 hours of gluttony; champagne from crystal, tea from china cups, smoked salmon, English muffins, chocolate mousse, clotted cream, fresh strawberries, mozzarella and tomato, pasta and on and on. It was heaven.

And not at all far from the settee to the blow up bed, I could literally roll in.

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So far on Qatar

You know a threshold of boredom has been reached when you get excited about airlines – and we were about to fly Qatar, an unknown quantity, back to the homeland gripped by hacking scandals and oh big surprise, rain. Qatar didn’t disappoint, the first plane to Doha was spacious, the staff unstintingly polite and the food delicious. The film selection was more restricted than Emirates although I was happy with ‘Adjustment Bureau’ a kind of an Inception for the less cerebral, though no lesser film for it, and well acted; sadly, the same couldn’t be said of ‘Paul,’ one joke thinly stretched over 90 minutes. Neither of us had really had time to contemplate being back in the UK, the other one for the first time in 2 years.

As we approached the airport, I got excited, not about landing, but as the skies were clear I could see about 5 other planes in the air, in front and below us (stuck as we were to our holding pattern), the other one muttered something about near misses and kept a keen ear out for the ‘brace brace brace’ command, though judging by the overall lack of communication from the cockpit, especially when we hit some stomach turning turbulence, he’d  be waiting some time. However, we landed unscathed and proceeded to spend another 20 minutes on the tarmac doing nothing. Welcome to Heathrow.

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Normal service will resume

so I broke the Friday update blog rule as I was too busy struggling with what to pack for impending visit to continental climes, especially when my destination was England, what to  pack? Will it be hot,cold, rainy, hailing? I settled for a bit of everything as that was all I had and hoped that our garage would once again reveal its magic mysteries and proffer up some decent clothing for me when I’m home…assuming I can fit into it….

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Abu Dhabi bound

It was only a couple of hours by bus to Abu Dhabi, so we thought we would experience a different part of UAE and after we’d explained to the hotel’s taxi man that no, we didn’t want to take a taxi all the way to Abu Dhabi and no, we weren’t going to pay 20 AED to get to the bus station either and got in a normal price taxi and paid no more than 15 AED and I’d queued up for our bus tickets as women seemed to be able to jump the queue, we finally arrived at the Novotel in said city. We dumped our bags in the poky room and headed out.

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