At last we are on the move. Hanging around for the past two days in an apartment hotel since the since the sale of our home was completed is surely a foretaste of the quarantine to come. We had plans to go down to Amsterdam for a final look around the Rijksmuseum and see a few friends, but last week the Netherlands moved to a fairly hard Covid-19 lockdown and put an end to that idea.
I leave the Netherlands with a lot of sadness, not so Carole who has found the last few months particularly hard, but an NDA restricts what can be said about that. (I have always detested these things. They allow the powerful to hide their weaknesses and invariably it is a woman on the wrong end.)
Schiphol airport is eerily quiet. The shops are shuttered, the malls empty and queues non-existent. I wonder what has happened to all the workers. What is their future? Will we ever travel again?
All of today’s flights fit on three display boards that in other times would tell the story of only a few hours worth of departures and arrivals. Despite everything someone has spent time putting-up traditional symbols of a commercial Christmas: tree, baubles and tinsel. Pleasing to see that the oliebollen truck is still plying its winter trade on the forecourt, an excuse for one last oily ball and to scatter castor sugar all over the front of my coat like a fine dusting of snow.
It is only six hours to Dubai. Barely time to get settled and figure out what all the buttons do in the infinitely adjustable first class cabin and surf through the enormous number of choices on the entertainment system. In the end I opt for the outboard camera until cloud blocks out the ground, then I switch to a movie to go with dinner. The cuisine is excellent, but a too cold chill deprives the wines of real flavour. Nonetheless I indulge myself determined to get my money’s worth and pay a greater price with indigestion. The movie is similarly disappointing; Gary Oldman portraying an uninspiring Churchill in the ‘Darkest Hour’.
We arrive in Dubai as Christmas Day begins. Onboard there were a few references to the ‘festive season’ whilst in the terminal you would hardly know the time of year. Which is fair enough, Dubai airport is wrapped in consumerism, notwithstanding religious factors another layer of glitter would be too much. My Christmas gift to myself will be a shower in the lounge. But the business lounge! Disappointedly the first class lounge is closed and its personal lounging rooms complete with spa baths are off limits.
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