Christmas 2009

The sun was already shining outside. It was progressively getting very hot under the dome so I unzipped my sleeping bag, a few minutes later I removed my fleece, then my long sleeves cotton top, then my t-shirt. Next to me the human lump was still lying lifeless wrapped up. I prodded him to check for any sign of life. A feeble noise confirmed that he was still alive. There is a saying in my country which doesn’t quite rhyme in English that goes “Notte da leoni mattino da ..” you google the rest!

The night before (Christmas Eve) was a lion’s night; for some more than others.

I wasn’t feeling 100% so after witnessing crazy dancing, crazy talking, skinny dipping and other stuff that I shouldn’t mention here I made it into bed at about 2 AM.
I remember being woken up by a text message from my brother at 4:30 AM (thanks bro!) seeing an empty space next to me and thinking that someone had passed out on the beach I went for a exploratory tour. S. was still around the camp fire making tea with the last survivor. They stayed up late. Possibly until around 5 AM (they don’t remember exactly… and I can understand why). So this was the result in the morning.

I couldn’t take it any longer; it was really getting too hot. I unzipped the front door, I walked hurriedly and dived into the refreshing sea.

Yes that’s how I woke up to Christmas day.


The rest is all the usual: a lot of eating and cheering with good friends; a full Xmas lunch in stile, Turkey and all the trimmings. All served on a beach.

We hope you had a fantastic one too and we wish you all a very happy 2010!!

Living the dream

Warning, this next post may make you jealous.

After another day spent under the sun and below the sea I look back at my week and as I reflect upon my working days I am unable to describe the feeling of elation that gently leads me towards the end of today.

My non-rest days start early in the morning; early means that the alarm clock goes off at 5:50 giving me those extra 10 minutes of snooze time to fool my body into believing that I am actually sleeping longer, when in fact I have interrupted my dreams 10 minutes earlier than I could have done. Never mind, it works better for me this way. Early means just before sunrise at this time of the year, which translates into a terrible feat trying to open the eyes and unsteadily step off the bed when the room is still dark and the body rightly thinks that it’s still time to lie in. Nonetheless when I think about the cold dark mornings I endured back in the UK I consider myself lucky because here I don’t have to recoil when the duvet slips off to the side and I know that the sun will be kissing me in no time.

I wake up slowly over breakfast and pack my few things. My eyes still a bit stuck together I set off in my t-shirt, shorties and flip-flops. As the city wakes up so do my senses, by the time I am sitting in the car around 7 am the sun is already glowing gloriously across the blue sky unveiling the jagged silhouette of the mighty mountains in the background.

The morning drive takes me through the city jammed with white houses then over and across dramatic mountains. After leaving the long motorway, the road bends, rises and descends. About 40 km from home the view opens up over the beautiful bay of Qantab; usually unveiling a perfectly still and turquoise sea that contrasts sharply against the golden rocky coastline. Everything looks still, the rocks, the air, the sea; like a snapshot suspended in time.

That’s how my day unfolds; the variables that determine how the rest of the day develops can be many. It may be a day teaching, which in turn can mean “yaky-yaky-yaking” in the classroom, soaking in the pool for hours (and gaining a ridiculous shorty wetsuit suntan), diving in the open sea in the afternoon, a day spent on 3 straight dives in the open sea, sitting at the bottom of the marina supervising students perform their skills or guiding already certified people out in the wondrous sea (which in case of experienced divers it means an event very close to a fun dive for me).

Repeat this several days in a row and neither will ever be the same as the previous one.

The sun almost always shines, the sea has always interesting shows on display, people are always so interestingly different.

Looking back I have nothing to miss from the office job. Seriously and absolutely nothing. That is why, no matter whether I am working like crazy or chilling out on a day off, you will often find me wandering around with a permanent grin painted on my face lost in thoughts about how wonderful life is and how green the grass looks on this side of the fence (even despite the little rainfall ;) …

Art Spa

Imagine if someone put a bottle of paint in your hands and told you: “Go and squirt. Release your inner child. There is no right or wrong, just mix, overlap, superimpose, juxtapose, express yourself with the colours...”

It happened to me: I am re-emerging from an Art Spa.

An “Art what?” I hear you say…

A friend who will be soon leaving Muscat for new shores recently organized a little get together with a difference at her apartment. She invited an artist friend who provided the materials and under her guidance we unleashed our creative geniuses.

The last time I attempted at producing some form of art was in my childhood when someone had given me oil paint and canvas as a present. I never quite got to produce anything worthy of an exhibition and I never took it any further than squeezing out the last drop of colour from the last tube of paint.

Somehow at that time my idea of art was very rigid and a bit bi-dimensional. Years have gone by and I haven’t come close to any more paint since then, not even to give a new lease of life to the walls in the house (paid someone for that too!). However my creative inner spirit has always secretly dreamed of giving it another go and maybe enrolling onto some art class. Another of those things for which I keep on waiting for “the right time” (?).

So when the Art Spa invite came along I thought it sounded like an interesting experience and a fun way to spend an afternoon with friends and I signed up.

I didn’t quite know what to expect but of course in my head, under the guidance of a seasoned artist, I was already producing some art worth of Raffaello or Michelangelo so you can imagine my puzzled expression when Jenny explained that we were there to squirt paint around without looking for any specific representation if not the expression of our mood and inner guidance.

What the heck? Here we go again “modern art”: take some elephant dung, stick it onto a canvas, spray some glitter here and there, place it next to an undone bed and call it talent.

Only kidding. I did see the fun of it all and the potential: I was going to come home with a canvas full of mismatching colours and would just have to explain to everybody who asked what I actually tried and miserably failed to produce.

Whatever, I was there to have fun so I quickly dropped my preconceptions and just gave it a go.

After a timid start I actually begun to be transported by the colours, the texture and the smell of paint, inks and sprays. Images would come and go, colours would bleed into each other, lines, curves, drops and splashes would create shapes. Paint was leaking onto the canvas, hands, feet, it was everywhere.

Luckily we had been warned to wear grubby old clothes we didn’t mind chucking away and the floor had been covered up although at some point a wild squirt made the wall participate into the experience and my old t-shirt has now a couple of arty hand prints…

We first practiced on some long paper sheet, just to see how colours play together, to get the feeling for different textures and types of paint, then we moved onto our very own canvas and started producing our masterpieces.

I always philosophise on the concept of a white canvas. To me it represents possibilities. It’s the beginning, it’s birth, it’s a vacuum and yet it can become anything.

Interfering with the vibration of that white space is empowering and letting the first drop of colour plummet onto it is daunting.

Yet, I let myself go. I had no image in my head at first. I let the colours and the random shapes guide me; inspired by the colours that I am always drawn to: yellows, oranges, reds… an explosion took place and ended up with my very own version of the mighty sun.

Sunset, sunrise?

Whatever, it is energy, it is life. It is who I am. It is the child of an Art Spa.

***

Click here for info on the ArtSpa and Jenny's work.

Just an ordinary day

More and more often my mind wonders over this blog or better over the fact that lately I am finding it hard to keep it updated. I could blame it on time however the thing that bugs me the most is that time is not the only issue (time can always be found I guess). The reality is that sometimes I feel like I have run out of topics.

It seems that some friends who update their blog regularly have an infinite amount of interesting subjects to delve on, as for me I am not sure whether I have run out of creativity, my world has become increasingly “normal” and bare from striking events or maybe I have just become so accustomed to the unusual that all is looking very “usual” to my eyes.

Has my life really become routine? Not sure.

Maybe I am just suffering from a “writer’s block”.

I have taken some time to ponder over this today; re-living the past few days trying to find some event or fact that may have happened that could be classified as, “unusual”, striking, surprising, strange, funny, witty; anything worth mentioning in the blog.

I guess back home you want to know what goes on over here and how we spend our days but then I think, do you really want to know what mundane things I have been up to today?

Sometimes in life someone will casually throw in a sentence in the middle of a conversation and that seemingly innocent sentence will stick forever in your mind; once a friend talking of people wanting to write books and biographies said: “for some reason people think that their lives are the most interesting thing to talk about but really who wants to read about someone else’s life”. It is a bold statement and it has stuck to my mind for many, many years. I find it so applicable now.

Surely from my point of view I lead an interesting life out here in the Middle East and I enjoy it very much; but going from enjoying it to actually believing that it is something of any interest for someone to read about is a completely different story. So here I am trying to find remarkable events to recount that could be remotely entertaining for you back home.

BLANK!

So what is happening? A lot but it seems that nothing is out of the ordinary any more.

Take today. It is a normal day off like others. I struggled to get up as it happens on my first day off of the week… it’s amazing the amount of tiredness that builds up in just 4 days!

I would have stayed in bed a bit longer but a friend suggested breakfast at 9:00am. So by 8:30 I was out in the car negotiating the already dwindling morning traffic. Life here starts very early, most schools and jobs start at 7:30 so by 9:00 am a lot of the people who sit in cars (generalizing a lot) are late starters or expat wives starting their round of breakfasts, brunches, coffee mornings, fashion meetings, plastic surgery consultations, shopping and who knows what else.

I dodged the usual car unpredictably breaking because the driver was lost in his own world of phone calls, observed the meticulously made-up lady texting at the red lights, got slightly (it’s my day off after all) hot blooded over erratic drivers with no clear destination or deadlines and finally made it to the beautiful area with the popular coffee venues.

It was a beautiful morning. I was sitting at the café outside, under the palm trees, the beach just below, temperatures probably around 23c and the gentle noise of the sea setting me right into the mood for a lazy breakfast. It felt like the beginning of summer in Italy. So nice!

My friend arrived and we spent two fabulous hours chatting over whatever crossed our minds.

Of course I can leave it sounding all picture perfect or I can add some more revealing details like: she had to order her hot water 3 times before she could take a sip of a morning drink, ending up with a non required bottle of cold drinking water and with me finishing my coffee before she could even start brewing her tea; she had to chase the persistent (and noisy) stray cat with the shoes in her hands and I “had” to haggle with a man at the car park when I arrived to have my car hand-washed during my meal for the equivalent of 2 or 3 euros (I am too “emotional” before breakfast for any kind of negotiation). All normal!

The rest of the day was also quite mundane. A quick stop to the dry cleaners to have the dresses used at the last balls cleaned, a telephone call to book a couple of treatments for tomorrow at my usual SPA where they now recognize me and call me by name (well, more like ma’m xxx) when I walk in, another call to book a hotel room for a romantic weekend in December in one of the most exclusive hotels in town to take advantage of a REALLY good offer, spending an expensive hour chatting to my life-coach (should I actually mention this here?) and booking the restaurant in another 5-star establishment for tonight.

Add fretting over a message from the landlord saying that the company is taking time to renew the lease for the house and that the company told him that S. no longer works for them (WTF? He definitely left for work in the morning, or.. is there something he's not telling me? ;) and that's the day done.

Yes that’s it and it is all pretty much normal. The rest of the week may be a different story. Who knows?

Now do you believe me when I say that nothing out of the ordinary is happening lately?

No time to get bored

How are things over there around more northerly latitudes? I guess that winter has now settled and you are swiftly entering into the festive mood.

Mulled wine, skiing holidays…snow, hail? Maybe.

Personally, every now and then I still catch myself marveling at the fact that we are already in mid October… no November oops it’ll be December in no time. The other day I noticed the first Christmas decorations for sale in the shops. Where has all the time gone? Not sure.

The strangest feeling of all is that while at the same time last year I was still exploring and everything felt new and unfamiliar this time round all the sudden it feels as if I am circling the same block again. It is not exactly the same at all but there are a number of recurring events throughout the year which I guess we have now caught up with (annual parties, balls, national festivals and celebrations).

Yes, although it bears no negative connotation, the novelty has worn off and we are no longer the new kids in town.

The unfamiliarity has been replaced by the still surreal feeling of realization that although we’ve very much grown used to it (and enjoy it very much) we are living in the Middle East and conducting some sort of surreal life that doesn’t have any resemblance to the old way of life back in Europe. Setting aside the obvious weather differences or even the different cultural background (which doesn’t disrupt the extremely western-oriented way of life we are leading in this country) I still stop every now and then and think that maybe I should pinch myself. I can’t cease thinking that maybe one day I am going to open my eyes and realize that I am late for work, it is dark and wintry outside and I have to drag myself out of the bed and into the tube across town to start another day in the office.

Luckily that hasn’t happened yet, so we are still living the dream.

I’ve been asked before whether it gets boring living in a country where the climate bears little variation and where it is virtually sunny all year round. My reaction is always the same: “no, why should it be?” Also variation is here, we range from 50c+ in the summer to the current pleasant temperatures. I have to say that tonight for the first time I actually felt a little bit chilly at home wearing just a little shoulder strap dress and flip-flops and this morning it felt “cool” when I stepped out of the house. Yes winter is upon us, which more or less means evening temperatures similar to a summer day in England and a beautifully comfortable and dry 28c or so during the day (although it can get a bit too breezy on the boat at the end of a dive). :D

Of course we are trying to make the most of what we can. The latest addition to the diversions in our life is a boat. We’ve recently purchased a boat in co-ownership with a couple of friends and we have taken it out for a christening outing to a beautiful bay not far from Muscat all together. Useless to say that we had a blast of a time!

In addition to that we are now in full party season. This means that we have already been to a number of balls with ambassadors, military attachés and other official figures so this week we should also appear back in the party pages of the local press.More parties and holidays scheduled for the next month and 1/2 too. Diaries are getting crammed!

On another note, the other day I was back in a business suit (after almost a year!). I was asked to provide some assistance with a delegation of people from my native land over here on business so I turned into an interpreter for 2 days accompanying a business man and a business woman on a series of meetings across town culminating, as always, into a dinner at one of the plush hotels in town where I ended standing up in front of a crowd of business people of all nationalities, the ambassador and other embassy officials translating one of the delegate’s speeches.

If I think that I once wanted to do this as a career I can consider myself very lucky that I have finally had the opportunity to try this out.

As a plus I got the chance to see the swanky suites of the hotel as that was the type of accommodation arranged by the company organizing the event and some of the meetings took place in the actual the suites. I never miss a photo opportunity! ;)

Anyway I think I have rambled a bit too much again. My fault for not updating the blog more often but it is getting increasingly hard to find the time.

Please do send us your news every now and then. We may not have time to reply immediately however we do enjoy receiving your updates.

In general all is good and as you can imagine we have no time to get bored.

The mystery of the disappearing tree

It is no secret that I am rubbish at gardening; my plants suffer the pains of hell gasping for water or drowning, lacking food and in general time, attention and tender loving care. It shows. The only reason our few shrubs survive is because we are now entering winter with its more forgiving climate and the maid waters them every other day, with the exception of the ones in the flowerbed outside which she inexorably manages to neglect too.

So the potted plants in our little courtyard look just… ok, the flowerbed on the outside in the other hand looks like the front patch of an abandoned house inhabited by ghosts (see photo on the side).

I have my excuses, such as I work very long hours for 4 days a week and the last thing I want to do when I come back home in the late evenings, hungry and with hair hardened and encrusted with sea salt is to spend half hour watering the plants, battling with a cheap hose that gets stuck under the car wheels and negotiating my way between the car and the perimeter wall to reach those damn rachitic shrubs on the outside…Yes, you’ve got it; gardening just doesn’t motivate me enough; or at least until now.

Suddenly in the last few weeks, maybe taken by the sense of guilt when seeing these poor two little trees every morning on my way to work hanging on dearly to their lives against all the odds I decided it was time to take some care.

It is amazing how resilient nature can be. I have always known that nature has its ways of recovering but that plant looked absolutely dead beyond any hope so when I started watering the two little trees and the small tree started coming back from the dead (see picture of recovering tree on the side) I was more than excited to see that maybe not all was lost so I made my resolution.

The plan was to go and buy some tools and sort this front patch once and for all, planting new flowers, clearing it up from the dead stuff, killing the weed and look after these resilient trees that showed me so much hope so that eventually the flower bed will again look like a respectable green patch.

Now here comes the dilemma. I am not sure whether one of the trees fed up with the treatment received grew some legs overnight and walked away or if (more likely) some scumbag decided that they could just eradicate it and make it theirs but the fact is that one of the small trees has disappeared (the one in better condition). Just like that!

In its place just a small hole in the ground (again see photo on the side).

You have no idea of the sense of abuse that I felt when I noticed the empty space walking out of the house this morning! I really miss my tree.

It is amazing how attached one can become to living things, even plants. After all the time spent making sure that it would survive I cannot believe it is no longer there. It had become like a pet to me. So at the moment, I am really annoyed (to the point that I think if I ever found out who removed it I may become seriously abusive).

You should have seen me this morning on my way to the key cutter to cut a copy of the keys for the engines of our new boat (but that’s another story for another post) driving around the neighborhood looking at other front houses to see if I could recognize my rachitic tree..

How pathetic can I be? Yes I think I have lost it altogether!

The mystery now remains… who on earth would steal a tree and why? and is this a crime that should be reported to the police? LOL! The world is full of weirdoes and every day there are new reasons to believe it!

As for what’s next, it’s really time to take action on that flower bed. It looks ever more desolate now, without my beloved little tree!

Oman a year on

Time flies! That's what I hear everybody say. Let me add that apart from those 3 infernal months in the summer time seems to fly even faster over here.

The year milestone of our lives here in Oman has come and gone. So what's the verdict? Well let's see. After a year no doubt we have settled.

Here are a few highlights of the last 13 months in a country that we now call home

• Making lots of new friends of different nationalities and backgrounds and learning about so many different ways of life
• Moving into a big house and going shopping for furniture with the company's money :D
• Beach bumming at the Yacht Club when we feel lazy at the weekend and can't be bothered to do anything
• Playing boules against the French at the annual international boules tournament and lose miserably ;)
• Crossing the desert and the salt flats to end up in one of the most beautiful beaches in Oman down in Bar Al Hickmann
• Getting lost up around the mountains on a camping trip to Ibra Tombs and having our friends start a search and recovery tour to try to find us then seeing their faces when we turn up at the camp and explain that the true reason for being that late was that we left hours later than planned and that we actually stopped for lunch.
• A visit to the Public Notary with Maura which saw us floading the notary's office with a bunch of men willing to help us with instantaneous tranlation
• Watching turtles laying eggs and small hatchlings running for life in the early hours of the morning at Ras Al Jinz (many times)
• Laying around a bonfire under a perfect canopy of stars during the night in the desert
• Feeling the heart racing on my first go at dune bashing climbing up a high dune on our 4x4 in the desert
• Screaming like a kid and sensing the need to open the door and jump out of the car at S.'s first attempt to come down a huge dune ;)
• Finally attending my Instructor Development Course, graduating succesfully and crowning the dream of working as a Diving Instructor in tropical waters
• Learning how to read Arabic script and munching a few basic words of Arabic
• Our pit stops at the Crowne Plaza for sundowners after work
• Popping to Dubai for a shopping spree and generally spending stupid money on meals and treats and not feeling guilty about it
• Going on holiday and still feeling happy about coming back home when the holiday is up because really our time off back home is like a permanent vacation
• Soon becoming the proud owners of a leasure boat :D

In general living a life of comfort for a bunch of acceptable compromises