7 OCTOBER 2006

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The first team head out

Bruce and Eddie drive down to Reading for lunch on a gloriously sunny morning. Some last minute items were bought and some repacking was done on the front lawn at Bruce's parent's before they departed for Heathrow Terminal 3. One such item that Eddie required was some needles and syringes for his diabetes. We popped down to the village chemist from which Eddie emerged with a bright orange bag that he had been issued with for free. He later admitted that this was a drug users kit so as well as the essential items it also contained leisure condoms and used needle containers. On reaching the airport, we opted to park up intead of being dropped off. The new short-stay car park was not connected with the usual tunnel and 20 mins were wasted waiting for lifts that were always full or heading in the wrong direction. These were immediately followed by another equally slow lift that took us back up a level and led out onto a busy narrow pavement outside. A large queue for Emirates was joined for about an hour before the real 'fun' started. A 30kg main baggage limit had been generously offered by Emirates thanks to Emma's enquiry a few days earlier but despite this our hand luggage came under scrutiny and Bruce's laptop bag which looked quite inoffensive, weighed in at 12kg. Some items were hastily removed and stuffed in the top of a main sack, but the monster computer and lightweight scanner were still refused. After explaining that the laptop on its own reached the 7Kg limit, a supervisor was called who thankfully saw sense and made an allowance. To follow this our flight numbers on our tickets didn't match their records due to a necessary change in the booking that had been made earlier. The total check in time actually at the desk must have taken 40mins.

Meanwhile Harvey and Ged travelled down to Harvey's brother's pad who took them to Manchester airport. They met up with Tony who was ahead of them at the check-in and was able to get himself a prime seat on the plane. Harvey forgot to leave his car keys with his brother and as a result had his mini-penknife confiscated at the security point.

We took off at 22.30 hrs and travelled through the night to Dubai.