At check-in we discover we're not sitting next door to each other - a 'group' is booked en masse in the plane - there are "8 people in your party..." according to the check-in clerk.

06:13 Breakfast at the terminal restaurant, a good cooked English affair, £6.10 (toast extra!).

On the flight, there's Lynn (as I'm soon to discover) in the row in front across the aisle from me, and Graham in front of me. Lynn's screen doesn't work, but that's not really a problem, unless you're desperate to see Stuart Little 2...

Touchdown in Bahrain was fine, but my eagerness to get through transfer and into the airport terminal meant we skipped past an 'official' pointing the way out to some of our group (unbeknownst to us) and also signing the boarding card to give a free meal in the (upstairs!) restaurant... I'm sure Alison has already forgotten and forgiven...

The shopping, having promised much from what I heard in England, disappointed. The airport was essentially a long spine, with vigorously polished floors at the centre, a large book/newsagents in the middle, and around it a collection of smaller shops. There's a couple of lottery draws, too, where you put your name into the box to win a car (Mercedes, or BMW), or a gold ingot (can just see importing that back into the UK). The prices were not particularly cheap and as we have no Bahrain currency I resorted to a $1 note to get a bottle of coke (for Alison) and 2 cans of Diet Coke (which lasted well into the holiday). Alison promptly cracked her bottle open outside the shop... and dripped coke all over the floor... we waited for a little man to scurry up and either cut her hands off or wipe up the spillage, but neither happened.

There was little else to the airport. The 'ethnic' shop opposite the newsagent harboured conveniently-sized carpets and cloth... and tiger-balm (more of that later...) and with about 6 hours still to wait we settled down on seats away from the central shopping hub - Alison read, and I started to learn the numbers in Hindi...

Departure from Bahrain - at about 01:00 - was dramatically different from the flight which brought us here. Everyone queued up at the departure gate (as usual) but once on, they simply sat down. Anywhere. Whether this is convention for India, I don't know, but Alison had a man sitting in her seat; he was relocated by the cabin crew (already looking stressed) but, of course, his (considerable) carry-on-baggage filled the locker above us and the others sitting around us had nowhere to stash theirs... the cabin crew then had to try and trace the baggage back to its owner, who seemed blissfully unconcerned about it.

The rest of the flight was muted mayhem, and a not-so-muted screaming child...