B

After an absense of almost three years we made it back to Britain twice in one year. The first visit was in spite of economics and the second because of the strange economics of air travel.

In mid June, while in Paris we arranged at the last moment to spend three months in Moscow. Rather than go directly from Paris we elected rather for a long detour of a week in Darlington. It was hardly enough time to really catch up on things, but we did have enough time to have a visit or a night out with everyone in the family.

We left Darlington by overnight coach and got to London at about 6:00 a.m. There we debated whether to first have breakfast or to go on to Heathrow and have breakfast there. Opting for getting to the airport well ahead of what we needed, we gave ourselves a very lucky break.

In early September, while still in Moscow, we arranged to go to Athens for four months. This time we'd have been as happy to fly directly. But it turned out it was cheaper to go via London than to get a ticket straight from St Petersburg, so that is what we did. The very excellent side benefit was that we got to spend time with Dinah and Mick in London.