How things can deteriorate during a short walk.

I had never met B's ex hereby to be known as O, before. This must sound weird seeing as how i have known B since we were 16, but we did lose touch for many years, and by the time we were seeing each other again the marriage was very much on the rocks. Anyway, I thought it diplomatic to leave B for a few moments and go and introduce myself to him. He was very friendly and obviously delighted with his little joke of turning up so unexpectedly. Then B came over. Words were exchanged in Arabic. One did not need to be a linguist to know they were not "How lovely to see you!"

We set off to the cars. B was talking to her ex brother in law Hassan. Hassan said how lovely her Morrocan house was looking. This was something of a surprise to B. They had bought some land in Morrocco and had begun building a house up in the mountains. Every penny they had went into the project. During the divorce proceedings she had wanted the value of the house to be taken into account but O had sworn that the house had fallen down in an earthquake and she had accepted that having no way of proving otherwise. We arrive at the cars. Another surprise. One of them is (was) B's very expensive four wheel drive jeep which during the divorce proceedings O had said he no longer owned.

Yes, it was all going really well.

My sister and I were reconciling ourselves to the prospect of spending our city break in a war zone.