Moroccan weekend away: Part 3

I’ve had a lot of nagging to do the next bit of this saga, so here it is.  Just to summarise the story so far, we are at Heathrow on our way to Marrakech for a weekend away, Richy has retrieved the tickets, wallet and passports he left on the roof of the car in the long stay car park at Terminal 2, and we’re at Terminal 4 where we’ve just found out our plane leaves in 50 minutes from Gatwick. (see Part 1 and Part 2) Continue reading

Moroccan weekend away: Part 1

I’ve decided I’ve got to do this story in sections, otherwise it will be too long (and unbelievable… I’ve already blogged about the very end).  I’ll start with the background and beginnings.  Richy Rich and I booked a mammoth weekend away last November. Three nights in Marrakech.  As I kept boring everyone I came across beforehand, even spending time with Richy in the airport was gonna be amazing, let alone the actual trip.   Continue reading

The terrorist, tagine and toilet

Here is a convoluted story. Checking in to Marrakech airport last Oct with Richy Rich (RR), I got a bit suspicious of a Moroccan guy in front of us (Red Fox). Just one of those funny instincts, confirmed about 20 minutes later when he passed the passport control matey some cash in his passport.  Had a tense wait at the gate wondering what to do. Board? Raise the alarm with staff? Warn all the passengers? Look a total numpty? RR went off “to tell a guard” about my suspicions . What a relief. He came back five minutes later and said he was joking. He’d been to toilet.

We boarded and sat a few rows behind Red Fox and his mate.  I nearly broke the skin on RR’s arm when the pair of them went to the toilet together. Red Fox was wearing a zipped up, very padded jacket. He waited in the kitchen area while his mate was in the toilet, then they swapped.  They returned to their seats and I scoobied to the toilet to look for a device. I went through the rubbish bin and did a finger tip search of the ceiling panels. Nothing.  I realised if they were going to blow up the plane, it would be over London.

I went back to my seat.  RR was so fed up with me he was feigning sleep so I made a plan.  We had to stop them returning to the toilet once we were over the Channel. There was a tagine in the luggage rack that looked like it could do some damage. RR could throw my coat over one of them and grapple him. We could block the aisle hopefully calling on the support of other passengers. It was a very, very long flight.

Three hours later we reached London and landed.  We shuffled off the plane but the doors into the airport were locked.  We stood in a line in a corridor, people muttering and getting a bit irate. After 20 minutes, the door opened and we walked through to a heavily policed passport area. Red Fox was taken away.