Friday, March 22

I wake up at 9:10 after a full night of uninterupted sleep. I lie on my back watching the fan on the ceiling. I realise that the revolving blades reflect the machinery on the wall.

I get up to discover Irma already hard at work on her laptop on the balcony.

I will have a second small packet of Corn Flakes for breakfast “created by local chefs”, this time involving almonds, pistacchios, and saffron that tints the milk light green.

We will finish packing and do some more work.

At 15:00 Udaya will arrive to take us to the airport. Molly will arrive to collect the house keys. Tangaraj will arrive to say goodbye.

We will check in, go through security, and buy our final samosas in a kiosk.

The IndiGo flight will leave, fly, and land uneventfully. I will have a window seat.

We will get through Dubai airport at walking speed again. Our luggage will arrive almost at once and we will get a taxi without queing, for the first time ever.

We will arrive at the Star Metro and get a free upgrade because of the trouble we had in January. We will get a two room apartment with two toilets and two televisions. Everything will work as it should.

Once we have settled in we will go downstairs and across the road to the Almaya supermarket. We will buy bread, spread, cheese slices and some fantastically crunchy small cucumbers. We will call these breakfast tomorrow.

Wandering the supermarket we will make various discoveries, including a breakthrough in breakfast cereals.

We will note all this as we go to sleep in a bed that we might legitimately call enormous.