37

As anyone who has visited Salut! Sunderland in the past 24 hours will know, the United Arab Emirates - Salut!'s home for 14 months or so - was 37 yesterday.

The country was born two weeks after M and Mme Salut! had the second part of their wedding; that event took place at l'église Sainte Jeanne d'Arc in Le Mans, a church honouring poor Joan of Arc and said by Mme Salut! and others to have been built by Henry II as a sort of "I'm sorry" after the murder of Thomas à Becket. (The legal knot had been tied in the more prosaic setting of Bishop Auckland Register Office a fortnight earlier).

So before I get down to news of recent travels to Egypt, here are a few of the pictures I took last night as Abu Dhabi poured on to the streets to celebrate its 37th anniversary.



Thousands were out on and around the Corniche. My drive home normally takes seven or eight minutes, but last night I abandoned my car several streets from home after getting nowhere in half an hour.




Everything was good-natured and colourful, with people hanging precariously from cars, klaxons hooting and families picnicking on available bits of grass along the promenade.



And people from all over the world joined in; with some estimates suggesting that 160 or so languages or dialects are spoken here, a street party with only Emiratis as guests would be a necessarily quieter affair.

But what of Egypt, from which I returned in yesterday's early hours?

Salut! thoroughly enjoyed being nowhere near a computer screen for eight days. We knew nothing of the grotesque events in Mumbai until the siege was virtually over.

Sailing slowly down the Nile turned out to be one of the most relaxing holidays I have taken - all the more so because the persistent street vendors and beggars of Luxor and Aswan could not reach us on our cruiser.

I will bring words and pictures very soon. For now, let me just see whether anyone knows what happened in the room arrowed above? No competition on this occasion - I'd hate Louise and Bill to think I was trying to attract readers to Salut! - unless I change my mind...