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02
Mar
Harrogate artist stuck in Dubai describes ‘pandemonium’ and bombs
Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman has described trying to sleep with explosions going off in Dubai as she and her husband, Peter, await flights home.
The couple were on their way back from visiting their son Hector in Australia on Saturday (February 28) when they got caught up in the conflict.
They were due to transfer flights in Dubai but about an hour before they landed, they heard on the in-flight news that the United States had bombed Iran.
Anita, who lives in Huby and owns Dove Tree Art Gallery on Back Granville Road in Harrogate, said they didn’t realise what impact this would have on them until they touched down.
They were initially informed their flight to Manchester had been delayed for a couple of hours but later told all flights from Dubai had been cancelled as Iran launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East. One missile hit luxury Dubai hotel Fairmont The Palm Hotel.
Anita said:
It was absolute pandemonium as thousands of people were trying to find flight information and get out. If we had landed an hour or two earlier, we would have got a flight.
I managed to find a hotel on booking.com at a good price three miles from the airport. We heard about six loud explosions on the first night. During one explosion somebody screamed. There were more explosions last night.
You see journalists in the middle of a war zone on telly and this has a bit of that feeling. It is scary but fortunately we are in a in low-rise hotel and Iran seems to be targeting iconic five-star hotels and the airport, but we are really not sure what’s going on.
Anita and Peter visiting a gallery in Dubai.
Some hotel guests, said Anita, are so frightened they are sheltering continuously in the hotel basement. But, in true British style, she and her husband are trying to keep calm and carry on by making the most of their unexpected stopover.
They visited a shopping mall yesterday and went to an art gallery today.
Anita is due to exhibit at Fusion Art Fair at the Great Yorkshire Events Centre in Harrogate this weekend.
“I’m hoping to get back for that, but who knows how long we will be holed up here,” she said, adding there has even been talk of the Home Office putting on a bus to Saudi Arabia for stranded Brits so they can fly home from there.
Anita said Katherine Scott from Harrogate firm Select World Travel had managed to book them a flight tomorrow (March 3) but they are still unsure if it will go ahead. Their current hotel booking in Dubai ends tomorrow so they face more uncertainty if their latest flight is cancelled again.
“It’s just a case of wait and see and try not to be frightened,” she said.
“We are missing the countryside. I brought a few watercolours with me, but I don’t have many paints with me.”
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