Wednesday, November 19/2008

Up at 4:15. We've set the alarms on both mobile phones and J's watch, just to be sure. And they all go off. Pretty well everything done last night. Take sandwiches and leftover salmon cakes for breakfast at Gatwick. Also remaining blue cheese. Leave 3 onions, a banana and a pint of vanilla yoghurt for the cleaner.

Just make the 5:16 underground train but it's a quick and peaceful time of day to be travelling. No problem catching the 5:50 train to Gatwick and ze're there at 6:20 - having allowed for all public transit contingencies we're much earlier than necessary.

Plane not full and the middle seat remains unoccupied. Allows for some manoeuvering room as party ahead - two very loud German men with a quiet Asian woman - is quite exhuberant. The girl is attached to a man with a hangdog face and a large moustache sitting in the window seat ahead of J while the tall man in the seat ahead of me looks quite a lot like Boris Karloff. They're not bad really - just very loud - and each time Boris Karloff throws himself into the seat my tray shakes and the wine wobbles. But we've learned one of the lessons at Monday's lecture on happiness - think of the alternative possibilities. Yes, we might have had quiet and considerate people ahead, but then again the 3rd seat in our bank might have been taken by a large person with a bad head cold instead of remaining vacant, so we're doing well.

As with Air Canada on our way to London, there are no newspapers - and British Air used to provide a choice. There is wine though, and a pleasant cabin crew, though lunch is a rather skinny sandwich. Across the aisle from us is a father with a lively, inquisitive 6 year old boy interested in everything after "we blast off."

Flight a little less than 3 hours and there's an hour's time change. We're met by a rep from A2B, the independent transfer company we booked online - 30 pounds return for the two of us, and it's about 150 km each way, so it's pretty good value, not much more than a return trip by taxi fro, home to the train station be. Knowing that it's cheap by western standards they've put a collection plate at the door as we board: "English money no problem." There are several of us, including the bright little boy and his father, but the others all get dropped off at hotels in Hammamet, a beach tourist resort town 63 km south of Tunis.

We're at the Monastir Centre Hotel, advertised as being central but not far from the beach as I googled for central. Actually some of the beach hotels are about as central, as we're only about two blocks from the beach. We had just feared being stranded on an isolated strip of tourist beach hotels outside the city. Fortunately these people also recognise our voucher, booked with a different firm online. We're on the fourth floor (out of 5) and in an end room with stunning views in 3 directions. The balcony doors are on the east, looking out over the Mediterranean, as dark blue as only the Mediterranean can be, and from the large balcony (15x15 feet) there is also a view to the south. On the other side of the room the window looks west, over the swimming pool and sun loungers to the city proper with apartments and the minaret of a mosque. As we enter the room the sun is poised as a red ball on the horizon, just about to set an hour later than it would have done in England.

The room itself is irregularly-shaped but big, with bunk beds tucked in a corner for the children we didn't bring. The shower is in the middle of a long bath and has surprisingly good water pressure for the fourth floor as well as plenty of hot water. Most tv channels are French, Arabic or German, but we do have BBC World, so we're in touch with English news.

Dinner (we've opted for half board) is from 6:30 to 8:30. Most of the other guests appear to be German. J, harking back to Yugoslavia 30 years ago, has always said that the Germans had a good eye for a bargain. Dinner is a varied buffet - fish, chicken, lamb, coscous, salads, soups (including a Tunisian one flavoured with a fairly ,ild harissa, or chili paste), salads, oranges, pears (a little underripe) and dates still on the stalk, as well as sweet biscuits and a pudding with a flavour we can't quite pin down which J remembers eating as a small child in Germany. Dishes are somewhat uncertainly labelled in three languages, and include chiken, lamm and fische.

We've been up since quarter past four so it doesn't take us long to fall asleep.