I am waiting in the arrival hall at Larnaca International Airport for my wife to arrive from London.

An over-dressed, over made-up Eastern European woman, in her early sixties or thereabouts, emerges through the sliding doors of the arrival hall with an expensive looking holdall bag propped on top of a more expensive four-wheel suitcase.

She looks anxiously for someone in the crowd, then her face relaxes when she recognises a similarly aged gentleman who is also expensively dressed.  They walk in parallel lines until they get to the end of the chrome rails that separate arriving passengers from those waiting to collect them.  They do not exchange greetings that I could discern, nor do they make physical contact.  She says something (not English) and he replies.  She hands over the luggage to him to wheel away and as he is about to take control, she stops him, unzips the holdall bag and pulls out a honey coloured Yorkie (Yorkshire Terrier) lapdog with a pink bow adorning the front of its head.  She tucks the dog under her left arm.  The man zips up the holdall bag and makes a second attempt at moving the luggage along before she urges him to stop again.  The man stops and she extends the dog-carrying left arm towards him, he bends over and kisses the dog smack on the mouth.  The dog is unimpressed by the sudden show of affection and maintains its imperious attitude.

The three, together with luggage, make their way to the lifts and out of my life.  I am half-tempted to follow them but at this point, my wife emerges with her own luggage to be attended to.  Relieved to see no holdall bag, we kiss, hug and make our own way to the car park.