The day after tomorrow, I shall climb on board an Etihad Airbus, hope for rather more leg room than Sir Richard Branson thinks is appropriate and fly home to Britain for Christmas and New Year.
This means leaving the sunshine of Abu Dhabi, a climate to which I have managed rather easily to adapt, for a week and a bit.
It is likely still to be gorgeous when I return - this is said by all the seasoned expats to be by far the nicest part of the year - and will remain so for a few more months until the onset of the traditionally fierce summer. And that will be a test of my powers of endurance; in place of temperatures currently hovering just below 30 degrees, we can expect a punishing 50.
In the much shorter term, I need to prepare for the sharper climes of home (well home-ish....I fear a trip north may be out of the question, forcing me to miss two chances to see Sunderland at home).
Bear in mind that our cat, Monette, having grown up as a chic Parisian apartment pet before taking happily to a life chasing lizards and crickets in the south of France, is already turning up her nose at grey, London skies and a distinct chill in the air.
But I am experienced at moving from hot to cold and vice versa. My return from honeymoon - that's a photograph taken by the Stanley News at Lanchester shortly before my wedding in 1971 - involved only a journey from Paris to the North East, but it felt when we made it as if we were passing through a succession of climate zones.
It had been a frugal few days in the capital, sharply at odds with the splendour of our magnificent French wedding feast in Le Mans, home town of my new wife, Joelle. I thought in those days what a great custom it was for the fathers of brides to foot wedding reception bills; having two daughters has curiously inspired a change of heart.
In Paris, we'd stand outside carefully selected restaurants - that is to say cheap ones - calculating what we could have if we ventured inside and chose the most modest menu or dish, a jug of mean plonk and a free carafe of tap water. My poor wife had, after all, married a man with a £12 overdraft, holes in his underpants and a dodgy Ford Thames van instead of a car.
For some reason, we managed to feel disappointed in a Chinese joint after overlooking the fact that they would hardly be likely to serve delicious (and also free) French bread. Why we wanted bread with chow mein or chicken fried rice, I do not pretend to recall.
In any event we were ready, when the time came, to go home. It was a brisk and quite cold Parisian morning when we set off by coach from la place Madeleine. But there was also bright sunshine which made it feel a lot less like mid-November than it was.
By Calais, the skies were misty. As the coach made its way through Kent, it started to drizzle. The rain became persistent during the journey north by train from Kings Cross. By the time we reached Doncaster, it had started to snow.
Emerging from the train and lugging our cases out of Newcastle Central Station, we discovered it was too late to hope for a bus from the Toon to our little home in Hobson. The snowfall was disturbingly heavy as we took our places in the long queue for taxis.
Between us, I suppose we had a few French francs and centimes (useless in the circumstances), and maybe a pound or so in change. When finally our turn came, we loaded up the luggage and settled ourselves in the back seat before mentioning the two minor snags: we were going (I believe) to the highest point of County Durham and we had no money.
Timing was the essence of the operation. We made sure the taxi was away from the queue, vaguely "going west", before breaking our news. And we took care to establish our identities as shivering young newlyweds, praying that we were in the hands of a kindly Geordie with a romantic streak.
Aye, he said with a sigh, he'd "give the road to Hobson a try". And aye, he'd take a cheque for the fare. What a hero! It was a pleasure to shovel our change into his hand as a tip when, after a hair-raising drive through the blizzard, we finally reached Prospect Terrace.
And next day, I began digging the rusty old Thames van out of three feet of snow. Married life had begun in the frozen north, and Joëlle was wondering - not for the last time - whether she had made the right decision.
There was one saving grace. Our flat was the downstairs part of what had been a miner's cottage. Hobson consisted of one street of such houses with what had been the pit manager's much larger abode further down the road and opposite. The place was barely big enough to swing a cat, not that I have ever had an urge to swing cats.
The saving grace was a touch of decadent luxury. Our flat was known to all Hobsonians not as number 23 but fowth netty doon. But that netty - or outside toilet - was surplus to requirements. We were grand. Our landlord, Mr Johnson, had installed an inside bathroom AND WC. What more could la jeune marié have possibly asked for?
Comments