Wards Abroad

Holiday photos

2007-05-25T10:58:00.000+03:00

Theatre of the absurd

2007-02-26T11:32:00.000+03:00

There have been lots of problems with the internet over here; various changes to servers and other stuff to technical and tedious to try to tell. So, while it has been almost impossible to get onto Blogger and actually impossible to get to post anything, there has been a bit of a lull. But now I'm back...

So, what's been going on? We've been cramming loads of stuff in to school. The last three or four weeks have been really busy with Sports' Day, parents' evenings, Football Festivals, going to Dubai, reports, rehearsals, curriculum rewrites, exams, courses and all that kind of thing. I suppose it's good in a way that we have a lot to do but it does feel as though there's one thing after another piling up the pressure on us. We might get a bit of a breather after this week as there's not much else in the near future.

The kids haven't been feeling any of it. Today is Hannah's busy day as she has swimming at school and ballet in the afternoon. She's getting a lot more confident in the water and can jump in and bob her head under and everything. Kim's been having swimming lessons for the last few weeks and she sometimes lets Hannah go along with her when she trains. James misses out a bit but he's been kicking his legs a lot as well. I guess we're lucky to be able to go swimming outdoors in February.

Hannah had her sports' day yesterday. We went along in our free lessons to watch her. It was all tricycle riding, space hopper bouncing and egg-and-spooning. She had a good time but it was a bit repetitive and Hannah started showing off to us and didn't always do the events properly. I'll stick some pictures up when I've downloaded them.

We've ordered the school photos of the kids for the family at home. There aren't any individual ones, just the group shots so you'll be able to see James sucking his thumb with the rest of the creche and Hannah looking off to one side as the rest of her class face the camera. It's funny; every class has one kid who looks like they are mentally defective. Thankfully, our kids are not one of them.

In the Jungle

2007-02-16T08:57:00.000+03:00

Our latest outing was to a place called Mersal Village. It's another tourist attraction that isn't advertised, isn't signposted until you get there and appears to be suffering from underinvestment. I don't know why they bother sometimes. Quite a lot of money must have been spent originally and it looks like quite a good idea in practice. However, the usual failings were apparent. I find it's a good indicator of how well-cared for a place is to look at the toilets. Broken toilets: check. Complete lack of paper towels and toilet paper: check. Wet floors: check. At least these ones flushed, which puts them quite high up the pecking order, unfortunately.

All that' s not to say that we didn't enjoy it. We went with four other families and the kids all had a great time. The place is some sort of amusement park based around an African safari. Perhaps mersal means something safari-ish in Arabic. Anyway, there were plenty of little rides for Hannah, James and the other kiddies and some for older kids as well. They are still at the age of enjoying a merry-go-round or train ride so there was plenty to amuse them. Hannah even wanted to go on the log flume but she was pretty scared afterwards because she sat at the front and got wet.

Unfortunately, I didn't take the camera so there are no pictures. You'll have to use your imagination.

Happy Birthday!

2007-02-11T12:05:00.000+03:00

Happy Birthday Sarah! Who'd have thought my little sister would now be 27? There are people working alongside me now who are younger than that. It makes me feel old.

School Daze

2007-02-04T18:48:00.000+03:00

From the Arab News:

A student at a high school in Hafr Al-Batin suffered a panic attack in the examination hall after realising that he had stayed up the whole night studying for the wrong subject. Teachers, convinced that the student was not lying, gave him a short reprieve and allowed him to leave the exam hall for a short while to quickly revise the subject.

I don't think there is anything I can add to that. If I had an international league table of educational success, I'd put it up.

Technics

2007-01-29T11:39:00.000+03:00

Somone made a comment on here asking what the benefit of moving to Blogger Beta has been. So, here's the answer;

Not much.

A few months ago, as I think I mentioned, Blogger started advertising the new Beta and giving people the chance to switch. I didn't because I'd heard that there were problems with Beta, as there always are, and I wouldn't know how to solve them. So, I carried on blogging merrily with the 'old' version. Then I started reading things on Blogging fora suggesting that Blogger was going to make people migrate to the new one sooner rather than later. I guess my herd instinct kicked in and I thought I may as well get it over with, so I switched.

Since that time I had a panicky few days when I couldn't get into the blog and now there's trouble with Flickr as well, which is why you may not be able to see the photos (I know I can't). I'm not sure if those troubles are associated with Blogger or with our ISP blocking lots of sites as we're in the Kingdom of Intolerance. Either way, there's a link between the switch and the problems.

To Beta's advantage, it is a lot easier to manage the blog, in terms of making changes to the things that you can't see or, at least, can't see the mechanics of. I can add things to the side bar much more easily, change the template colours and layout without needing to know lots of CSS and stuff like that. Perhaps you need to be a bit of a nerd to appreciate it. Perhaps it's been one big dumbing down exercise.

On the other hand, now I've got two columns instead of three and I haven't looked to see about how to change that. Also, a few of the things that I had put in my third column, I have not added into the new template. I don't know if that's what the person was referring to when they said that the new version doesn't look as good. It's a bit less cluttered, which is why I did it, I suppose.

If I could be bothered, I'd look into gettting a third column, putting more things in the sidebar, perhaps, and finally sorting out the blog header. But I can't. I have started a blog about my class though, so that's another way of keeping my toe in. We'll see what happens.

Happy Birthday!

2007-01-22T11:31:00.000+03:00

It was Hannah's birthday today. We managed to squeeze in a few presents for her to open on the day although the main one was this:

She had a little 'do' on the village green as well, with all of the other kids from the compound in attendance. We didn't really organise anything for her in terms of games but Kim did spend half the evening sorting out the party bags. I think she's reliving her childhood through Hannah and wants to do everything 'properly', which usually means the opposite of the way things were done for her. I suppose we all do that to a certain extent.

Anyway, she excelled herself with the cake, which disappeared in record time. It was mostly eaten by adults although the kids got to sniff it. I managed to get this as well:

so that's a clean sweep of all the kids blowing out their candles. I even managed to get William blowing his out as well. January has been a busy month for birthdays.

Flight of the Bumblebee

2007-01-15T19:25:00.000+03:00

It's starting to get very busy round here. We're doing our reports, the first of the year, and they're due in next week. Unlike NES we don't do them before Christmas, which is appearing to be something of a mixed blessing, and I can get away with just doing numbers rather than writing comments. Still, it's a new way of doing things to learn.

Kim has got herself on an EAL course which will eat up about 50 hours of her time in the next couple of months. The school is moving towards a complete overhaul of the curriculum, part of which involves reassessing the way that we approach teaching a body of students which differs greatly from those for whom the curriculum was originally planned. I'm trying to sign up for the ICDL, which will be the first bit of INSET I've done for a few years. It's good to be in a school which is prepared to fund staff development for a change.

I'm also about to appear in the worst show I have ever been a part of. I was called on as an emergency measure to take a smallish part in the panto. It really brings home how lucky we were to be part of KLT for so long. Mind you, they haven't done anything this season either. It seems to have gone a bit limp this year.

Anyway, we've scarcely had time to catch our breath since we got back from the holiday. I'll keep updating the posts about places we went to but the picture site seems to have broken though.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

2007-01-11T14:43:00.001+03:00

This is where we went at the beginning and the end of our holiday. It is on the edge of Nairobi National Park and is a centre dedicated to the care and nurture of orphaned baby elephants, as well as the odd rhino. As you drive up the hill to the centre you pass the houses of the handlers and the trucks they use to transport the animals before you come to the main buildings themselves. It is quite a small place, appropriately enough as Sheldrick wanted to minimise man's effect on his surroundings. There are a few pens for the animals and a few portakabin sized buildings but that's about it.

Kim adopted an elephant called Shimba before we left Saudi. The centre depends on donations at the gate and gift-purchases to a large extent. We got to print off a little certificate and a history of Shimba. It was nice to see him when we got to the park as well. He is one of the youngest ones there at the moment. He's pretty lethargic as well, according to his biography, so he fits in well with our family.

After the baby elephants had been shown to the crowds, the handlers brought the 1 and 2 year olds in. They were quite a bit bigger and fairly boisterous. They are allowed to be fed milk, which the babies aren't, and they ran down the hill to collect their bottles from the handlers.

After they'd had their milk they started playing around in the mud. Apparently, the babies get sunburn very easily, especially on the edges of their ears, so all this splashing keeps them cool. Unfortunately, some of the elephants are a bit naughty and like to splash the people around them as well. They also started pushing each other over and you'd be amazed at how noisy a small elephant can be.

We bought a few t-shirts after the show, which probably helps a bit. The centre is only open for an hour every day as they try to keep the elephants as unused to humans as possible, apart from being in constant contact with their handlers when they are babies. So, they have to try to milk the tourists as much as possible in that hour. We didn't mind a bit though as it was lovely to see these animals up close and the handlers were very knowledgeable about each one, as well as the parks that they will be sent to. We enjoyed it so much we went twice.

Karen Blixen Coffee Garden Restaurant & Cottages

2007-01-09T20:47:00.001+03:00

This is where we stayed while we were in Kenya. We booked it all on the internet from Saudi and were a bit apprehensive as to whether it would all work out kosher in the end, but it was.

The place was very nice; green, relaxing, in a quiet area of town, apparently very upmarket. There were lots of birds in the garden and even a couple of large tortoises. Hannah and James had great fun following them around and trying to feed them. I think James was reassured by the fact that they were scared of him, as opposed to the other way around.

We spent quite a lot of time here in the first few days, as it rained almost every day that we were in Nairobi. Luckily, the cottages were quite comfortable and we were having naps every afternoon, which killed a couple of hours.

Happy Birthday James!

2007-01-09T10:57:00.000+03:00

So, James was 2 today. We didn't make a big deal of it, firstly because he has no idea what is going on from day to day, and secondly because we didn't really have time after coming back from the holiday. Kim made a cake

which eagle-eyed readers will see is similar to the one that Hannah had when she was 2. I managed to get a picture of him, mid-blow, after which the surrounding kids swooped on the cake and devoured it, along with the adults.

We thought we'd get James a tricycle for his birthday. He keeps chasing after the older kids as they ride up and down the compound and he can't join in. Hannah has been towing him around in a little car

but we thought we'd get him started on his own wheels.

Homeward Bound

2007-01-06T14:24:00.000+03:00

Well, we're back from Kenya now. We had a really wonderful time, seeing lots of animals, enjoying the greenery and the complete change in environment. It was a fantastic way to spend our holiday and we're already thinking about going back in a few years.

Obviously there are lots of photos to stick on the blog but I'll put them in under the names of the places where we took them. We went to a few different places around Nairobi, without actually going away on safari. So, I'll write a little description of the places we went to and put up a few photos to go with it.

In the City

2006-12-24T23:33:00.000+03:00

Went on a bit of a wild goose chase this evening. It was caused by a problem I have and a problem other people have. I can't eke out coherent directions from a person because I'm not forceful enough to say "Yes, but where EXACTLY" and they're not able to give adequate directions because I don't speak Arabic. Or something.

So anyway, I was looking for a place to change some money as we're off to Kenya tomorrow and we don't have any shillings. After a brief 3km walk and 2 motorised diversions through bits of downtown Jeddah I eventually found the large mall where the money changers were and got the job done. However, the walk up and down the end of Medinah road was the best bit.

It was a pretty busy road, at the end of the main thoroughfare from one end of Jeddah to the other. But, in comparison to K****t, there were actually signs of life around, not just posh shops. It was a bit strange really. There were lots of little souks, like the travel agent souk, the office furniture souk and so on, but interspersed between all of these were some little shops that communities need in order to survive: tailors, butchers, barbers, shops selling hideously frilly baby outfits.

It was quite invigorating to walk along them and get a feeling of life going on around you. I think that living on the compound is quite sterile and seals us off from the real world of Jeddah. There was a bit of a buzz around, not compared to places like London, New York or Truro but it was certainly a different feeling.

I also noticed something else that was different to K****t. The mosques are actually appealing and aesthetically pleasing. There was a very grand one that seemed to be undergoing some renovation but it had columns and an ornate alcove type thing above a very large door. It seemed too big for the surroundings really. Just down the road from that one was another, small one. That one had a barbers built into the walls! That was a nice touch, making the mosque part of the lives of the people around it, not just some untouchable holy place. I might try and get down there again with the camera but I don't know if photos are allowed much.

Yesterday we all went for a walk along the Corniche. I'll put some pictures up later but it was pretty disappointing, at least in the bit that we saw. On our meandering way back from that area we passed the historic district and saw a lot of buildings with the old wooden balconies that Jeddah is famous for. There seem to be some sort of efforts going on to preserve them and make people aware of their importance but I think that photography is definitely a no-no down there so I might just have to look on the web for stuff.

Right then. Merry Christmas to everyone. As I said, we're off tomorrow so I may not be able to post for a while. Have a happy New Year if I don't.

Panic

2006-12-24T13:07:00.000+03:00

Help! We've just had a look at our receipts from the company who booked our holiday in Kenya. They haven't got us down as arriving until Boxing Day. We're actually arriving on Christmas Day. Are we going to turn up, only to be told that there's no room at the inn?

Shopping for Girls

2006-12-21T23:43:00.000+03:00

So, after the excursion to the supermarket this morning it was present shopping this evening. I thought I'd take a look at Tahlia Street, which I've heard is the Champs Elysees of Jeddah. I suppose it is, in terms of it being much wider than most of the other streets. However, like every other street I've seen in the Gulf, it is extremely pedestrian unfriendly and there aren't very many street cafes. So perhaps it's a tenuous comparison.

Anyway, I started off in classic English traditional style by visiting Marks and Spencers. Unfortunately, it turned into one of those classic Arab customer service episodes. The debit card machine wasn't working so I said I'd pay cash. The assistant couldn't started swiping my stuff through, gave up, stopped to serve another customer who'd just come back with cash because the debit card machine wasn't working, started on my stuff again, couldn't get the till to work, shouted around the shop for a couple of minutes for help, fiddled with bags and then completely gave up on me and went to serve another customer at the next till. At that point I left. Perhaps I should have pointed out what he'd done but I thought it easier to give up and relieve them of my burdensome custom.

I then wandered up and down about 2km of Tahlia Street and completely failed to find anything at all to buy. If I'd wanted kids clothes or Chinese made tat for the house I could have bought bucket loads but there was nothing for Kim. It wasn't until I got to the very last shop in a strip mall that I found a couple of things. The salesman was extremely helpful and was willing to chat about all of the things in the shop, even those I had no intention of buying. We had a little browse over this:

You can find out more about the phone, if you have SAR158000 to spare, here.

Needless to say, that's not what I got Kim. She already has a phone. I got her something else but you'll have to wait a few days to find out if she liked it.

Jesus Is The Reason For The Season

2006-12-21T23:14:00.000+03:00

I was down in one of the big supermarkets this morning, doing the usual Thursday shop. I was looking around for a few things suitable for Christmas dinner, as we won't be leaving for Kenya until the evening. I picked up a couple of bottle of Appletise and a few chocolatey things and then I noticed a display of Cadbury's chocolates in a basket by the checkout. It was almost like the stocking-filler chocolates that I used to get as a child, full of about 8 different bars of Cadbury chocolate. This one was just a cracker-shaped tube of chocolate buttons. Anyway, it was good for the kids so I got them one each. I noticed that, on most of the tubes, the Arabic translation of the ingredients had been carefully placed in order to cover the picture of Santa in the corner. Oh well, I thought. Western decadence is creeping in but they are still being careful.

Then, when I went around the corner to the next aisle I saw this:

Now, as you know, it's the 21st of December today. So these sweets should have been sold before the end of October. I wonder if they have been held up in customs since then and, if so, can we look forward to loads of Christmassy chocolate in March and Easter eggs in June?

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

2006-12-19T21:47:00.000+03:00

It was the staff 'Al Fresco' Christmas do this evening. We all gathered outside, obviously, on the playground for a seasonal dinner of lamb chops and barbecued chicken. Not quite what they'd do in Australia but I suppose you aren't going to have a full roast and all the trimmings when you're catering for 100 in a garden.

For some reason, the playground was fenced in with a lot of multicoloured sheeting on frames so it looked like the walls of a circus tent. It was a nice night though; plenty of chatting to people who are already our friends and not a lot to people we don't already know. It feels a bit strange to have done it on a Tuesday but a lot of people are zooming off as soon as possible tomorrow night so we couldn't have done it then.

I was trying to post some photos but it doesn't seem to be working. I will when I can.

No Skin Off My Nose

2006-12-17T19:52:00.000+03:00

You may have come across this news already but I thought it might be interesting to put on the blog as well. I note, with a straight face, that the head of the WHO's HIV/AIDS division is Kevin de Cock.

Yellow Christmas

2006-12-15T11:32:00.000+03:00

We were off in the desert yesterday evening. It was the Jeddah Hash House Harriers Christmas do, and they had arranged for Santa to turn up in the back of a trailer being pulled by a four wheel drive.

It was in the same place as the Bonfire Night event, back in November (0f course), and regular readers will remember that I said we'd got completely stuck in the sand and ended up having to be pulled out backwards by another car. This time, in the green machine, there were no such problems. In fact, we managed slightly better than one of our party who couldn't reverse out through the sand.

The walk we went on was a lot easier as well. It appears to be the middle of nowhere, and it's at least half an hour from our place on the outskirts of Jeddah, but there were new concrete wells in the sand and small walls stretching from the bottom of the hills all the way over to the other side. One of the regular Hashers said that the land has been divided up between people and the walls marked the division. It seemed to me that they were just splitting one bit of featureless rocky hillside from another but I suppose it may one day be cultivatable or open to development.

James was hanging on to the lady from the creche, again. I don't know why he's so attached to her but she is very caring towards him and put some mosquito repellent on him, which we hadn't even thought of. Hannah marched on, encouraging Kim as usual. Most of the walk was on gentle slopes, which was handy for us as well as the kids. The main run was probably up and down the steepest hills, at pace, and none of us have any interest in that.

When we got back to the parking area the organisers had set up a grotto in the sand, with Christmas trees and fairy lights and a fireplace. Santa eventually turned up about an hour later and the kids lined up to get their presents. The whole thing was very well organised; not just in terms of creating two levels of walk for beginners and experts, but also to bring all the Santa stuff out to the desert, getting the presents for the kids (and making them appropriate to their age and gender) and looking after everyone when they were there. The Hash in K****t seemed to be just a lot of alcoholics getting together to do silly things between drinks but this group, although they keep trying to get us to do pseudo-Scouting songs in an attempt to 'bond', do seem to be a genuine social group, as opposed to just boozers.

I've got quite a lot of pictures of the evening which I'll download later.

Message in a Bottle

2006-12-13T21:37:00.000+03:00

I was browsing over a choice website when they pointed me in the direction of this story. The article is normal enough, about pigeon problems in a small area of London, but the comments that follow are the work of restless minds. Very funny.

Losing My Mind

2006-12-13T21:14:00.000+03:00

So I'm finally here on Blogger Beta. In the gap between posts I have actually set up another blog on a different platform, so convinced was I that Blogger Beta was blocked in the Magic Kingdom. To be fair, I was told this by a person who doesn't have a fantastic record of being spot on in his predictions and perhaps I should have been a little less rash but anyway, no harm done. If you're interested in the other blog, it's here.

What happened was, I made the switch to Blogger Beta, after having stared at the invite for ages, then I was unable to sign into my blog for a week or so. Actually, the last post was on the 8th and it's the 13th now so it could only have been 5 days. Anyway, in the meantime I went onto Google groups and found out that loads of people have been having trouble with Beta. The IT manager here said that https sites, such as Beta, are blocked so I thought I may as well go for something new. Having looked over the opposition to Blogger, I might be tempted to keep the Word Press blog on. It isn't as flexible as Blogger, inasmuch as I haven't seen a way to edit the HTML, but it's a bit more user-friendly and looks nicer. I suppose, if I put more effort into learning CSS or a bit more HTML, I could improve this one, but there's my innate laziness to overcome.

Broadway Baby

2006-12-11T20:32:00.000+03:00

It was Hannah's first ever school concert today. We, as proud parents, were sitting in the second row, straining to catch a glimpse of her. She and the rest of her year group were all singing songs about a busy day in YE, which is Early Years or something. She'd put us off the scent initially because she'd told us that they were doing 'The Rainbow Fish' and that she was the little blue fish and Kylie, her best friend, was the rainbow fish. As it turned out, it was YN or YR who were doing 'The Rainbow Fish' so I don't know where she got that idea from.

So she trouped in with the rest of her class and sat on the back row on the opposite side to us. If I hadn't had my trusty new camera I wouldn't have got anywhere near her with the shots. However, I've trimmed them so they're a bit blurry.

They sang songs about getting ready for school, having a busy body, heads, shoulders knees and toes and all that kind of thing. Hannah was joining in with pretty much all of the actions and she seemed to know the words as well. She wasn't really shouting the end of every line because that was the only bit she knew, unlike some kids.

Kim managed to see some of the concert, through the tears. I didn't cry at all. It didn't even strike me as an emotional moment as I was just enjoying watching Han so much (and trying to work out how to use the camera).

James was brought along by his favourite creche assistant and watched the whole thing. I don't know if he could see that Hannah was in it but he seemed to enjoy himself and he looked as though he was craning for a glimpse of Hannah at the end. He gets taken to all of the Lower School shows as the creche is right next to the concert area. Apparently, he had to be removed from the West End Revue because he started arguing with Tiffany, who is in the picture next to him.

Fun, Fun, Fun

2006-12-08T16:52:00.000+03:00

It's been a busy weekend so far. We were off at the Arabian Homes compound yesterday for their family fun day. It was the usual raffles, tombolas, stalls, bouncy castles and that sort of thing. It also included a baby camel, which made lots of roaring noises all of the time. James was scared and riveted at the same time and kept asking to be taken back to see it again.

Another popular attraction was Santa. One couple had got their house up to look like Santa's grotto and the man had dressed up in the red suit. We bought a ticket and waited in line but when the time came, James was too petrified of the strange man in the dark room and Hannah was too shy to say anything. She did ask if Santa was living there and not in his workshop though.

Quite a lot of people from the compound seem to have won prizes in the raffle as well, which is nice. We didn't but the kids did get a few balloons from the clown and had a good time on the slides and stuff. I thought today, as I collected one or other of them from outside, how nice it is that there are lots of other kids on the compound for them to play with. Living around a lot of other people has even helped Kim be more sociable, and those of you who know her will agree to how difficult a task that must have been.

The Camera Loves Me

2006-12-05T21:01:00.000+03:00

I had another splurge the other day. Not really a big one, just a step up in our collection of unnecessary material goods. I bought a camera. We only had the ones on our phones up till now and, now that we are in a country with things to see, as well as planning a holiday to a country with LOADS of things to see, I thought we'd better invest in an improved memory preserving device.

Here's the very first photo I took with it.

It's our Christmas tree, as you may have guessed. Already the subject of many admiring comments from the neighbourhood kids. James particularly likes holding one of the metal Santas and beaming as he shows people around the branches. I think Hannah's getting a bit of rispeck from the other kids for having a cool seasonal ornament as well.

The camera itself is a Nikon D50, if that means anything to you. All I know is that quite a lot of our fellow compounders are keen smudgers and this model was recommended to me. I suppose you can tell me if you can see a difference between the Christmas tree photo and all the previous ones on here.

Fool's Gold

2006-12-03T20:42:00.000+03:00

I'm sure you're dying to know how all the palaver with the iqamas turned out. Those seasoned Middle Easters among you will be able to guess, I'm sure. To recap; we have spent the last 3 months to-ing and fro-ing between various ministries, offices, embassies, consulates and the like, trying to get Hannah and James put onto my iqama. It was proving impossible to do so because someone, somewhere, had entered them as Christians on their visa forms and changing the computer records cannot be done under any circumstances. So, as a last resort, Abdullah and I went down to the passport office and applied again, as if it were for the first time. After a fairly short wait (for a Saudi ministry) we got to see one of the rubber-stampers behind the counter. He started filling in the forms and then saw on his screen that the kids were Christian but I had said they were Muslim on my paper. Something along the following lines then took place:

Rubber-stamping lackey: "Hey boss. It says these kids are Christian on their visa forms but the guy here says they are Muslim."
Senior rubber-stamper: "What?"
Rubber-stamping lackey: (Repeats first comment)
Senior rubber-stamper: "Ok, just change the details on the computer then."

And that was more or less that. We had a brief pause with the most junior of rubber-stampers, who was so bored with his job that he held us up for a few minutes while he pretended to be concerned with our papers, then we were out! So, the kids are now officially here, Kim has got her visa for Kenya and the rest of us can start doing the same thing as well.

Of course, in a few days I'm sure we'll be told that the slightly more advanced computer has rejected the editing made on the less advanced computer but that's just part of life's rich tapestry.

Christmas is coming...

2006-12-01T14:39:00.000+03:00

Last night we put up our Christmas tree and all the baubles that go with it. It seems as though some of the decorations did not make it through from Kuwait, unmentioned by the shipping company, but most of them did. It was hard to tell, when the children came downstairs to see it this morning, who was more excited; them or Kim. I think, on balance, it was probably Kim. We've got a set of flashing lights up at window and the neighbours have all been round to see the tree so we've fulfilled that aspect of the Christmas spirit; envy.

Unfortunately, and as predicted, James is now eating many of the smaller decorations and I foresee another three weeks of Kim chasing Hannah and James around, telling them not to play with the stuff on the tree.

The other momentous event of the weekend was that I washed the car. I don't think I have ever washed a car 'properly' before. By that, I mean, rinsing before washing, using car shampoo, then drying it off afterwards. It was quite a satisfying experience, in some ways, although the hosepipe which I finally managed to fit to the tap doesn't reach far enough for me to wash both sides of the car, so I had to chuck buckets of water over it. I've had a few lessons in car cleaning from R, who has won a concourse competition with his Mini and knows what he's talking about. I may even be able to recognise things under the bonnet in a few years.

My Way

2006-11-30T13:42:00.000+03:00

We've come to the end of 'Love Letters' now. The final performance was last night, and it went very well. The cast managed to save their best performance until the end, the audience was extremely appreciative and quite a lot of them were in tears at the end, which is the response we were hoping for.

We had a fairly unpleasant incident on the Tuesday night when some cretin let their phone ring and ring and ring, on three occasions, at the most inappropriate moment in the play. I suppose they were terrified of being seen to turn it off after the first time but there were a lot of justifiably angry comments aimed in their direction once the show ended.

Happily, last night's show went off pretty much perfectly. I was really proud of the actors, Kim had a great time and was crying a lot at the end; surprising as she was also in it at one time. It was a really nice way to begin our time with Incognito Players.

The Show Must Go On

2006-11-27T06:41:00.000+03:00

It's the first night of 'Love Letters' with the Incognito Players this evening. We're finally ready after weeks of intensive rehearsal. There's only two actors so, as director, I've been feeling as though I've been on at them for ages. Kim and I did the play in K****t but with 6 instead of two. This time it's the same couple all the way through.

We had been rehearsing at school, which was nice and convenient for me, but the show is being put on at a large compound down the road. It's enormous, even compared to Basateen, which is next to the school. I think there are thousands living on it, but everyone says it's not as full as it used to be. Anyway, the management have been kind enough to allow the theatre group the use of the hall, and they have done a lot to help in terms of set construction in the past. It's a far cry from KLT but it's the best that can be done here, as it's all illegal.

So, the next few nights will be very busy, and then Kim will be in at school for a few evenings, rehearsing the Middle School show. I just want to go to sleep.

Hannah is off school at the moment with some sort of throat infection. All the other kids on the street seemed to have been ill in the last few weeks and we were hoping that it had passed us by. Unfortunately, James was sent home early on Wednesday and now Hannah's picked up the bug. Having her coughing and kicking in the bed all night isn't helping us feel rested. She's on antibiotics so she might be better tomorrow, inshallah.

Born of Frustration

2006-11-26T18:22:00.000+03:00

If you had just sent off $5000 for a holiday and had heard nothing from the middle men since doing so, when would you start to get worried: a)after three days, b)after a week or c)at least 10 days?

On a lighter note, the children have not yet been put onto my iqama. They remain on a temporary visa, which has been extended many times. If they are not put onto my iqama soon, I, but not they, will be able to leave the country in December. The reason for the delay is that somebody in London wrote that they are Christian on their visa application form. As a result of this, the paperwork has involved (as far as I can tell):
1. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jeddah,
2. the Passport Office in Jeddah,
3. the Ministry of the Interior in Jeddah,
4. the Ministry of Education in Riyadh,
5. the British Consul General in Jeddah,
6. the Jeddah Dawaa Center,
7. the Ministry of Endowments and Hajj,
8. the Saudi Embassy in London and
9. the school.

There was some mention of somebody in Mecca but I don't know who that was. I wonder if you can guess what each of the relevant people has said. Was it; a) let us deal with it and we'll get it back to you when it's done or b) it's nothing to do with us; you need to speak to Department X?

Move Any Mountain

2006-11-23T21:03:00.000+03:00

The kids and I went off to Moon Mountain again today. Kim was in school, rehearsing the dancers for the show, so I went off with B and W and their families for a kiddy trip. We had a bit of a diversion as B got lost just outside Usfan. I've no idea where he went to as there was a police check point not far down the road, which he shouldn't have fone through. W and I waited at the turning and B reappeared about 10 minutes later.

We went to a slightly different patch of rock-covered sand than last time. This spot had a bit of shade and an easy climb to the top. Somebody suggested that the reason why the place is called 'Moon Mountain' is because the summit of one peak looks just like a giant pair of buttocks. I'm not sure that's the reason myself but I'll try and post a photo so you can see for yourself.

Hannah had a great time playing with all the girls. James fell over few times and made me carry him up the hill instead of walking but I think he enjoyed it anyway. It was a lot busier than the last time we went, perhaps because it was later in the day, perhaps because it was a lot cooler. Another difference from the last time we were in the desert is that I didn't get stuck in the sand. Now that we have the mean, green, driving machine, there's no terrain we can't tackle. I even put it into four-wheel drive for a bit as well!

Kids

2006-11-21T22:17:00.000+03:00

Been a while since I last posted again. Don't worry, I'm not (quite) getting weary of the whole affair; it's just that it's been a hectic week or so.

First things first; we went to our first Parents' Evening where we were the parents, on Saturday. We see Hannah's teacher every day when we take Hannah to school so we already knew her a bit. I saw Hannah in class on Dad's day as well so we weren't expecting any surprises. We thought about being mean to her teacher and asking questions like: what is her position in the class, why isn't she bringing any reading books home and how will she do in her GCSEs, as that's the sort of rubbish we have to deal with. In the end, we chickened out and tried to act normal. It seems that Hannah is pretty normal as well. She knows a bit more than some of the other kids, as we'd hope, but she's fairly shy. She spends all her time with the other white girl in the class. Her teacher thought that it might be because they have fair hair and the Arab kids like to touch it, which annoys Hannah and her friend. It's a bit of a strange theory but I suppose she's the one who sees the class every day. We were told not to worry about being able to write letters. Despite what my sister has been told, over here they don't expect the kids to write any letters before YR, whatever that equates to.

The other exciting thing that happened on Saturday was that I finally picked up our new car. I think I may even have got all of the paperwork as well! It's green and shiny and the rest of the family love it, probably more than I do. Hannah and James want to take every opportunity to climb all over the seats. I'm not quite sure what the attraction is, myself. Perhaps I was the same when we got a new car when I was a child.

I've noticed already that people get out of the way pretty quickly when I approach. It's nothing to do with my driving, I hasten to add. It's just that the Patrol is such a behemoth on the road that other drivers, knowing that the people around here don't seem to use mirrors, realise that they will come off worst in any collision and don't take any chances. It makes me feel much safer, which is what we want, but also a bit of a bully.

There's been a bit of fall-out from the Safari night on Thursday. It became rather rowdy, as 'juiced-up' gatherings often are, and either the raucous screaming of Kum By Yah at 10.30 or the apparent harmonica playing sometime after 1am seems to have disturbed some people to the point where they felt they needed to make their concerns known to the director. He sent a polite but firm message to all of us, reminding us of our responsiblities to each other as a consequence of compound living. Some of the rowdiest people are feeling a bit sheepish and are thinking of knocking their revelry on the head now.

Just on a minor point to finish, after my merry dance around Regent's Park mosque in the summer, I imagnined that I had cleared whatever religous bureaucratic hurdles might have been placed in my way. How foolish of me. It now appears that someone in London, probably the school's fixer, has registered Hannah and James as Christians on their visa application forms. This has meant that they have been unable to be put onto my iqama, as I want them to be put down as Muslims. So, they have been in limbo for the last 3 months, hanging around on visitors' visas. We now have a very short time to sort out the mess, as we are hoping to go to Kenya and it needs to be done before that. It may be that I will have to go and convert, again, or at least pretend that James and Hannah have converted. James might not have to though, as he has a birth certificate saying that he is a Muslim. Hannah's says that she is a Christian. The Kuwaiti who filled in that particular bit of paper didn't look at the section where I had specified that she was a Muslim, they just looked at her name and face and leaped to a conclusion. I love racism.

Little Fluffy Clouds

2006-11-17T22:31:00.000+03:00

As we sat outside, eating our dinner this afternoon, I looked out across the street to where our the children were playing on the grass. James was climbing up the slide and dropping a balloon from the top to see what would happen. Hannah was cycling up and down the street with some of the other children and trying to build up enough speed to get up the ramp onto the play area without rolling backwards.

The air was warm, there was a temperate breeze rustling the leaves of the trees around us but not so much that we couldn't hear the birds singing as they gathered for the evening roost. We waved to people we'd never seen before as they passed by on their way to school and chatted to our neighbours about how things were going with them. Little fluffy clouds puffed slowly by, tinged with pink from the rays of the sun.

I felt completely sure that we had made the right choice in coming here, both from our perspective and considering the welfare of the children. They are happy here. They have friends to play with, school to entertain and educate them and they are safe, secure and loved. We are happy here.

Alhamdulillah.

Go Wild In The Country

2006-11-17T11:06:00.000+03:00

It was the compound 'Safari Night' yesterday. I don't know if it's an event that people have heard of before, I certainly hadn't, but about 50 of us moved around from house to house, eating each course of the dinner in a different place. I suppose it's an attempt at social engineering and getting people who wouldn't normally spend an evening together to do so and perhaps make new friends. Or maybe it's all good clean fun.

Kim was one of the chefs so she stayed at our house the whole time. I had the starter here as well. It was tomato stuffed with layers of leek and blue cheese. I nearly typed bleu, which would also have been correct as we couldn't get Stilton and had to go French. I moved on to another house and had roast veg, chicken curry (ish) and green beans, while Kim served a very raucous group a chilli. My last course was strawberry crumble with cream and I think that Kim had kiwi pavlova.

It was very enjoyable, most of the time. Kim had a lot of compliments for her cooking and a couple of people asked for the recipie for the tomato thing. It was a lot of work for the cooks as they mostly had to do all three courses themselves. However, I think it will be remembered as a successful event for our little community so the work wasn't in vain.

I don't know if it achieved the desired objective of bringing people together who wouldn't have otherwise met. I spent a lot of the post-prandial socialising hiding with Kim and another friend from one particularly 'merry' reveller who kept trying to get us to dance. Mind you, I did chat to one chap who thinks he was conceived in Bingley and whose (Ethiopian) wife and children live in Sheffield. He, like quite a few people here, had previously worked in Kuwait.

The only other 'new' person I spoke to was a lady in the Chemistry department. She noticed I wasn't partaking of the compound 'juice' and started asking me about being a Muslim, how my parents converted and all that kind of thing. We had quite a nice chat about how religions must come from the same God, whether you have to follow a particular religion to be 'saved' and so on. Perhaps Mum could let me know a bit more about her conversion experience.

Everything's still crossed for the car tomorrow.

PS Thank God for dishwashers.

Disappointed

2006-11-16T09:37:00.000+03:00

Well, I'm sure it won't surprise anyone that the car has not yet arrived. I was promised that it would be here yesterday, after the company had all the necessary paperwork on Tuesday morning. However, either the traffic department's working day of approximately three hours or the tendency of the Nissan gophers to have a sleep on the job has meant that it will now be Saturday at the earliest before we finally have transport.

Driving Me Mad

2006-11-14T06:26:00.000+03:00

Still waiting for the car to arrive. There has been a hitch with the paperwork. The routine which was apparently working perfectly well has been changed because the car company aren't paying big enough bribes, according to them. It may come in the next couple of days but I'm not holding my breath. Unfortunately, as I've already returned the hire car (before I found out there would be a delay in getting ours) we are now carless, which is not a pleasant position to be in. At least the hire company didn't notice that I'd almost ripped off the bumper on the trip to the desert.

The Arabic teacher who had given us a couple of lessons has dropped out of doing the teaching now. Not that she told us that, so we were still turning up to the room twice a week and waiting for her. To be honest, I didn't feel as though my Arabic was heading towards improvement anyway. I don't really know what the best approach might be but a fairly abstract vocabularly list followed by a little bit of guidance as to the pronunciation didn't seem to be it.

Indoor Fireworks

2006-11-11T12:11:00.000+03:00

We had an eventful evening last Wednesday. We'd decided to be brave and join in a Hasher event to mark Bonfire Night. We trekked off towards the desert in a little convoy, picking up people as we went until we arrived at our gathering place. It was a long way down a bumpy track to where the rocky hills made a kind of amphitheatre around a flat, open space where people were parked and camped. We got there fairly early but by the time things started there were about 50 car-loads. South Africans seemed to be there in large numbers, for some reason.

You'll be shocked to learn that the event began with a walk/trek over the hills and rocks nearby. We all went off on the mini version and the hardier folk did a 10k run. Hannah was egging Kim on the whole time, saying "We just can't stop Mummmy. It's an adventure" and Kim did manage it in the end. I had James on my shoulders because he was whinging a bit for Kim. It was a bit hillier than Moon Mountain and certainly a lot more populated but it did feel very much as though we'd had a good change of scenery.

Once we'd finished the walk there was some sort of Hasher sing-song, which we didn't join in with, then they judged the guys. One of them was a big picture of George W. Bush but I think the Scottish one won. There was a barbecue as well, they lit the bonfire once it got dark and we finished off with the fireworks. It was the first time the kids had seen fireworks and it was certainly a good beginning. People had gone up to the top of the hills and launched them from there which meant that the explosions seemed very high and reverberated all around the walls of the canyon. Hannah sat in her deckchair enjoying it quietly but she did ask to go and sit in the car when it became very loud. I was holding James and he seemed to get into the spirit of things as well. Some of the other compound kids who were there got a bit scared of the loud bangs.

That was that for the evening, really. We got home at about 10 o'clock with two tired but happy chappies. It was quite a nice way to spend an evening and made us feel quite adventurous. Apart from getting our little saloon stuck in the sand twice, taking an hour to be towed out by a Jeep and causing great hilarity amongst the onlookers as we were towed backwards at speed across the sand, it was fun from start to finish.

It Aint Over Till It's Over

2006-11-08T19:53:00.000+03:00

We've just had our first Parents' Evening at the new school. With only 19 kids in the class the meetings tend to zip by a lot quicker than they did when I had 32 in previous schools and, once I tried the radical step of preparing for the appointments, I found I had a lot less difficulty than in previous years. We've got one more left on Saturday but that shouldn't be a problem. I wonder if the lack of patriate (is that a word?) parents makes any real difference.

The car buying is almost at an end now. I took a colossal wad of cash up to the showroom this afternoon and dumped it on the relevant desk. The salesmen are dealing with the paperwork as I type (probably not literally) and our little runaround should be here on Saturday, just in time to miss the Guy Fawkes night fireworks in the desert. That's tomorrow and has been organised by the Hashers. We'll be giving the bobs an extra long afternoon nap to prepare them for the evening excitement.

It was Daddy Day in Hannah's class today. I had a couple of free periods and Kim lent a hand by taking my class for one lesson as well. I went over to the Lower School and joined Hannah. We made a skeleton out of pasta, painted a (anatomically incorrect) picture of me, played in the sand, tidied up the dolls house and sang nursery rhymes. Hannah seemed to enjoy showing me around her class and I enjoyed being with her for extra time but I can say without any doubt that I would never choose to teach 3 year olds.

Rank

2006-11-06T21:43:00.000+03:00

I've just noticed that my 'score' on the BritBlog thingy on the right hand side has changed from 5 to 6 and the colour of the bar seems a bit browner. Clearly I am no more aware of what it means than you are. Perhaps it's similar to the US' system of terror warning and I am now on 'Ochre Alert' or something.

Anger Is An Energy

2006-11-06T21:29:00.000+03:00

I've been feeling a bit too puffed out to make any posts lately. We've got parents' evening tomorrow, not that I've been doing anything for that but I also have a PGCE student in my class. I'm having to teach her everything I know about education, which used up almost all of first break this Saturday. I have to sign off on whatever teaching standards she has achieved and guide her through the process. She hasn't taught before and doesn't really have much prior knowledge of the system at school. Mind you, she went to the New English School so...I've been trying to find various curricula for her to aid her attempts to plan the next six weeks. Unfortunately, I've been a bit hampered in this by the fact that the school doesn't seem to have them, at least, not in any meaningful sense. That came as a bit of a shock to me as I'd assumed we'd had them, it's just I haven't seen them as yet. Anyway, we'll soldier on.

There was a social evening for the (name deleted for reasons of security) Theatre Group on Saturday night. I discovered, also to my shock, that the entire operation, of which I am now a part, is illegal. Apparently, mixed gatherings, mixed performances and general theatricals are utterly forbidden and we all live under the shadow of the muttawa. I suppose, coming from the liberal paradise that is K****t, we're used to a more above-board system. It explains why I couldn't find anything about the theatre on the web before we got here though. You may remember that I mentioned a theatre group in a previous post, possibly months ago. Just in case you feel like checking I'll warn you that it isn't that theatre group. Definitely not. No.

Kim's just finishing off a read through downstairs with the Incognito Players (as they are now known). She's got a part in 'Run For Your Wife', which was supposed to be on soon but they couldn't get the men. Now they have so it's back on again. Read through tonight, first rehearsal soon after as there's only four months until curtain up. How unlike our own dear KLT.

Scary Monsters

2006-11-01T11:03:00.000+03:00

Well, it was the Halloween bash last night during which our kids ran from house to house gathering as many sweets as they could. Ah, it's nice to celebrate a day of real meaning isn't it? There were quite a few kids from the compound doing the rounds and while Kim took our two on their tour, I sat on the step to our house with a big bowl of assorted tooth-destroyers. Whenever a kid came up to me and said 'Trick or treat!' I always replied 'Trick please' but they didn't seem to know what to do at that point. They weren't really entering into the spirit of things I suppose. One of them actually came up, looked at the bowl of sweets for a while, waited and then said 'Yes, I would like some of those' which is what it's all about isnt' it.

I'll put a couple of pictures of our blobs up but I won't do it through Blogger as it doesn't seem to work so you'll have to wait a while to see what amazing costumes Hannah and James were wearing. Kim had an anti-abaya on. I don't know if that gives you any clues.

Sunshine On A Rainy Day

2006-10-30T21:32:00.000+03:00

We had our first thunderstorm yesterday! I woke up thinking that we had a short-circuiting light, the lightning was so constant. It was pouring down as well. The street in the compound was pretty flooded and a lot of the kids at school didn't come in as there were floods where they lived as well. By the time we were ready to go to school it had stopped so we only had to step over the puddles. It rained again today at breaktime and all the kids went bonkers. People are still telling us that we probably won't see any more rain this year and it's bound to get hotter soon. Perhaps, but it's nice to enjoy the cool while it lasts.

It looks as though we'll be getting a Patrol in the next week or two. I quite fancied it myself, being a fervent environmentalist, but Kim had it in her head that it was too ugly or too big or something. A friend of ours said he thought it wouldn't be comfortable as it's an off-road car rather than a soft-roader. But, after seeing it in the showroom Kim was very impressed and although we won't be doing too much desert driving, I look forward to barging people out of the way on roundabouts in the not too distant future.

Speaking of concern for the environment, we're weighing up whether to go to Kenya or the Far East at Christmas. It'll be good to have a holiday of our own as we haven't been since our honeymoon and although seeing the family at Christmas appeals in some ways, shuffling from house to house every couple of days and cramming the four of us into one room does not appeal. So, we'll either be off hippo spotting or lying on a Thai beach, depending on whether we want to be utterly destitute or merely poverty stricken for the remainder of the year.

The Wanderer

2006-10-29T19:01:00.000+03:00

Whilst shopping for Halloween stuff in Toys r Us, James wandered off. We waited by the till for a while but he didn't come back so I went off to find him. This is where he was. He'd dumped his plastic wig and toy-on-a-stick and clambered up the pile of boxes to sit on top of that car simulator thing. He kept silent the whole time, of course, so nobody would come and tell him to get down. Now, does that show real ingenuity and persistence or a complete lack of common sense and self-preservation?

If it helps you work it out, he stuck his hand under the hot tap this evening to see if I was telling the truth when I told him it was hot.

Butterfly McQueen

2006-10-29T18:49:00.000+03:00

Here's Hannah after Kim had finished with her on Friday. This was to make up for not having her face done at the Marriott. She was pretty happy with it and it didn't even come off when we went swimming later that day. She wasn't too happy about having it scrubbed off in the bath though.

Breakfast at the Marriott

2006-10-27T14:30:00.000+03:00

Someone had heard that there was a children's buffet at the Marriott on Friday mornings and so, not having eaten child for quite a while, we decided to go. Sorry, I'm tired.

Unfortunately, we got there at 11.15 and the 'children' aspect of the day wasn't due to start until 1.30. Our kids have a fairly fixed routine which involves going for a nap at 12. I took the photo at about 12.30. Can you guess whether or not we made it through to 1.30?

Anyway, the food was nice; a bit more variety than at the buffets we went to in K****t. They even had a shwarma stand but I wasn't able to partake due to the usual eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome. There were 13 kids there, of varying ages, so they amused themselves while the adults ate. James did manage to graze on a few chips and bits of fruit but Hannah just licked the chocolate off the top of the eclairs. She had been looking forward to the face painting but we missed it so Kim has been doing it since we got home. I'll stick a picture up when it's been downloaded.

Why Does It Always Rain On ME?

2006-10-26T12:29:00.000+03:00

It rained yesterday! It was Wednesday, October the 25th and we had our first rainfall. Admittedly, it was only about 50 drops on the car but it's a start. As people told us that it would only rain once all year in Jeddah I'm feeling pretty optimistic about what's to come.

While I was wandering around a(nother) shopping mall this morningI noticed a advertisement displaying the various attractions that were on offer during Ramadan. One of them was Gurgaan, or Gergian as I knew it. I'd thought that was purely a K****ti activity, as I'd never come across it at other times, including when I lived in Saudi before but it seems as though it is celebrated here as well.

Wild Horses

2006-10-25T12:20:00.000+03:00

We went out for a shop and play combo yesterday. There's a mall near us called Sawary Land Mark which has three floors of supermarket, food courts and play areas. Obviously, the kids were very excited when they saw all the rides and loved every minute of it. They went on the carousel, as you can see, some sort of cage monorail which dangled over the three floors so you could see all the way down to the bottom and a swing roundabout. They weren't quite as good when it came to eating their dinner but it was only overcooked chicken nuggets so I can't blame them.

I suppose this is an example of what the Saudis can do as far as family entertainment goes. There are lots of these indoor amusement areas, from what we've seen so far. They seem to be safe, relatively well organised and have a lot of different attractions. However, it's still just another place to go and spend money indoors. I know it's hot in this part of the world but I would much prefer an outdoor area to yet another fluorescent mall.

Still, at least the pictures all seem to be showing on the blog now.

The Shampoo Set

2006-10-23T20:45:00.000+03:00

This is just a test to see if posting pictures directly from flickr.com works any better than uploading them to Blogger.

Parklife

2006-10-23T20:35:00.000+03:00

Eid Mubarak everyone.

We decided to take advantage of the end of Ramadan to eat out in the daytime and also to go to a park for the afternoon. After looking on the map of Jeddah kindly provided by the school we found a likely place on Sari Street, about 15 minutes from home. There was a fair bit of circling the place when we eventually found it as there didn't seem to be any way in but we got there in the end. It seemed to be a kind of funfair called 'Princeland' with a bit of brownery (too dusty for greenery) and a few swings dotted around. It was labelled 'Municipal Park' on the map though, so we had hopes of benches and play areas.

Sadly, we were quite disappointed. Understandably, the funfair was closed but that wasn't what we were there for. The rest of it was rather lacklustre, to say the least. The swings were splintered and apparently designed for beings other than humans; the slide was metal and therefore scorchingly hot as well as made with big holes on the sides to assist children who wished to fall off or get their legs stuck as they slid down; the one bench we found was broken, either through vandalism or old age; the ground was strewn with litter; the cafe attendants refused to allow us to have a couple of patio chairs that were piled up in the sun because they were only to be kept in the sun, rather than in the shade; we were chased out of the shade by another attendant for what I can only assume was the crime of sitting on grass that was not to be sat on without a chair which we were not allowed to sit on. All in all, it was not a place to recommend. Now I don't want to be the sort of person who is always harping on about how much better things are in (fill in place here) but it's pathetically hapless, nonetheless. If you are going to make a park, wouldn't you want to provide places for people to sit and for children to play? Wouldn't you rather the litter was put in bins, and therefore you might need to provide bins? I just felt that it was indicative of a couldn't-care-less attitude. Whoever runs the place couldn't care less about those who use it, as long as there are plenty of places for people to spend money. Sometimes Kuwait (there, I said it!) compares very well to Saudi and the investment in parks is one of them.

If anyone can recommend a nice outdoor area that a family with young children might enjoy without having to spend money, please let me know. In the meantime, avoid Princeland on Amir Maajed Street at all costs.

Hairdresser on Fire

2006-10-23T09:14:00.000+03:00

We took the kids to Basateen the other day to get their hair cut. They'd needed one for a while but I think we'd been hoping someone else would get one first and we could get some tips from them. As it was, people seem to be doing it at home which is not what our children want at all!

As it turned out, the hairdressers upstairs in the main building do kids as well. At least, the women's hairdresser did Hannah and the men's barber did James. The man in the women's section gave me a few dirty looks at first, I suppose because I wasn't allowed in there. It wasn't as if there were any other people in there anyway and the men's barber hadn't arrived so I couldn't get James done. Hannah was very grown up about the whole process and sat on a pile of towels having her hair washed. I guess all that training with Dawn at Cutting Edge in K****t has paid off.

James was another story. He cried the whole time, rubbed the hair all over his face and eyes and tried to push the barber away when he was having his ends clippered. Kim says that he always cries when he has his hair done so I don't think the chap was doing anything wrong. Luckily, it's only every three months or so.

PS As I was composing the post I just thought I'd check to see if Cutting Edge have a website. They do! Although Tim's still designing it at the moment.

Reader Meet Author

2006-10-23T08:39:00.000+03:00

I've now made a post on the Saudi Book Club site. It seems to be one of the most unpopular posts since the site began. Apart from one kind remark from the owner of the blog, who is more or less obliged to comment, there's been no response. Perhaps I was a little too parochial in my choice of book.

Man on the Moon

2006-10-20T23:11:00.000+03:00

We had our first trip outside Jeddah today. Friends of ours on the compound have bought the book 'Desert Treks From Jeddah' to go with their new Land Rover and we took both of them out for a test this morning.

We had to drive about an hour from Jeddah to get there, passing through a checkpoint on the city limits first. It made me feel as though we were really heading out beyond the pale, so to speak. We had seen the hills around Jeddah as we'd driven up and down the main highways but once we were amongst them they took on a more imposing nature. They seemed to be large mounds of sand, covered with rocks and boulders, all of varying sizes but all black or dark grey in colour. Some friends who have just returned from the Wahba crater told us that it is volcanic so perhaps there was once a lot of activity in the region.

It was almost like driving over Dartmoor in the UK or through the Alps, as we wove amongst the hills. Of course, you had to take into account the relative lack of vegetation but there were lots of scrubby trees and a few dozen camels wandering around to add a little local colour.

We crossed over the Medinah highway and headed off, through a strange, one-camel town and into the hills. After a little over an hour we turned off the road and drove along a sandy (naturally!) track for a few hundred metres and parked at a likely spot at the foot of a rocky hill. We rested the cars and started climbing up the rocks. I suppose it was the rounded, almost melted shape of the boulders that gives the place the name 'Moon Mountain' although it could have been the flat expanses between rocky cliffs as well. Hannah and James loved the climbing, Kim less so. I took James up part of the way with me but we got to a point where I was carrying more than he was climbing so he wanted to go down again. Hannah continued, almost to the very top which was about 50m of steep, difficult climbing. The people on the ground certainly looked a long way down. By that time it was about 10am and getting really hot and as Hannah wanted a drink we came down again. She didn't do quite as well on the way down as she scratched herself on the rocks a few times but I was really proud of her for doing so well, especially as the other adults didn't even try to climb.

It would be nice to go out there again, perhaps to camp, although it was a bit too hot today. We tried going early in the morning but I think you'd have to get there at about 8am to make it cool enough to stay a while. We also got an idea of what we'd need to take to make it a more pleasant picnic. Not going in Ramadan would also make it better from my point of view. I don't know if any of the pictures will show up on the blog as I still can't see them myself. If not, have a look in the Flickr bar on the side or go to the Flickr site and search for wardsabroad.

World Leader Pretend

2006-10-18T10:31:00.000+03:00

While the rest of the family were watching 'Barbie Rapunzel' again, I was passing the time with trivial internet-based mumbo jumbo. This was the result.

What Famous Leader Are You?

Mild mannered, yes. Assasination victim?

I suppose an example of where not being mild-mannered will get you is one of our neighbours on the compound. We've been trekking back and forth to the Land Rover garage for the past 4 nights which, as it's Ramadan, means staying out till past 12. He'd originally tried to get the L3 V6 and told them so. However, when he went back the next day they'd sold it. To cut a boring story short, every time he went back they'd somehow failed to serve the customer properly and kept giving him bigger discounts to make up for it. He ended up with the V8 for SAR20000 less than the V6 would have cost. Last night was the culmination of the excuses they'd been giving for not having the car ready. I left him at about midnight and he was preparing to wait until 1am for the leasing guy, who's only working 3 hours a day in Ramadan, to turn up with the number plates. I don't know what time he got there but when I got up for Fajr at 4.30, the car was in his drive.

Maybe I should be more pushy and see where it gets me. I'll try it on Kim first so this may be my last ever post, if things go wrong.

WIth A Little Help From My Friends

2006-10-17T17:34:00.000+03:00

Browsing the BBC site I found this article about Saudi bloggers. It discusses the rise in blogging in Saudi Arabia, perhaps in response to the lack of freedom of expression in 'real' life. Anyway, the article begins with a picture of Ahmed Al Omran, who runs the site which lists my blog! He seems like quite a celebrity of the Saudi blogging scene. And now I know what he looks like.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

2006-10-15T19:39:00.000+03:00

As promised, here are some pictures of me on my dive. As you can see, it's warm enough to go in swimming trunks and a t-shirt. What you can't see is the bit where one of my dive 'buddies' tried to squirt the bread up my trunks. I'd already been bitten on the ear by a couple of cleaner fish (I don't think it's a reflection on my personal hygiene) so goodness knows what they would have done if they'd gone up there.

Every Day I Write The Book

2006-10-15T12:14:00.000+03:00

As part of my endless selfish quest to get more visitors to the blog, I have become a member of another blog called the Saudi Book Club. I can't remember how I stumbled onto it, probably through the Saudi Blogs list but it looks quite promising.The idea is that you read a book and then write a review on the blog and others can have a read if they want to.

It seems to be populated by university students who read either great works of literature such as Dr Zhivago or the latest American novels by Frey or Coelho and the like. I don't know if my tastes will be somewhat low-brow or outdated but we shall see. I wonder if they'll accept children's books.

Where The Sun Hits The Sky

2006-10-14T20:06:00.000+03:00

It was the first real day of our holiday today. Despite having had an afternoon at the pool yesterday, we raised ourselves from our torpor and trooped over to a beach about half an hour away for a day by the sea. The couple next door were going as well so they could have a dive and I thought I'd try the same. I didn't mention it to Kim so she wasn't exactly pleased when she found out.

It was my first dive since Kim's birthday in 2000 so I was a bit rusty. Luckily, Kim's head of year was with me and she is doing her Dive Master. We were at a beach called Al Nakheel or something like that. There were some quaint wooden chalets dotted around and we might come up here for a few days around the Eid time. I rented some gear from the shop, kitted up and we dropped off the end of a pier into a lagoon. I'd forgotten everything that I'd learned in my course 6 years ago and immediately had to resurface because I didn't equalise. However, I got the hang of it eventually and we had a good 77 minute dive around the reef and coral garden. I saw much more than I ever saw in K****t, just as I did in the summer when I was at the Al Bilad beach. Jo took a lot of photos and a bit of video so if I can find a way to get that onto the blog I will do. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem with pictures again as the chicken Maryland one hasn't come out.

Kim managed to get horrendously burned in her couple of hours on the beach. I've been squirting her with after-sun since we got home so let's hope that does the trick. It's usually me who doesn't bother putting the sun cream on properly as well.

This Night Has Opened My Eyes

2006-10-13T13:41:00.000+03:00

Well, after feeling that I haven't seen much of the real Jeddah recently, I can now say that I am much more familiar with its particulars after last night.

To begin with, a group of us went out for a meal. It wasn't quite a completely new experience as we went to Casper & Gambini's, which is down the road towards the city centre. Obviously, having almost had a dedicated C&G delivery lane to our flat in K****t, we were familiar with most of the items. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening with good company and enjoyable food. It was a bit hard for the ladies to have to keep their abayas on. I guess you choose between sitting inside a shoe box of a booth or having an open plan restaurant where women still have to be draped in horrible black sacks. (Note to self; must stop chafing against Saudi restrictions). I had a very nice mixed starter, shared with a couple of other people, followed by a steak. The food didn't seem to be wholly Italian, as you might expect from the name. There was a smattering of Oriental dishes and a few Arabic items as it is Ramadan. I guess the steak dishes are European/American. Kim had some pasta and the rest of us had steak or variations on pasta, I think. Everyone else said that they enjoyed their food, as did I, although the atmosphere was a bit lacking. I felt as though I wasn't entirely relaxed. Let's hope that's not a Jeddah problem.

Our night was briefly interrupted as I was summoned to move the car from the front car park to allow the convoy of some spoiled prince to zoom past. There must have been at least 30 cars, trucks, ambulances and helicopters involved in moving this person from one part of Jeddah to another. Of course, the road was completely closed, as were all the feeder roads nearby. I can see how a parked Nissan Sunny in a restaurant 50m away from the road he would use could just ruin his evening drive.

Despite arriving back at the compound at 11.30, I knew places would still be open as it's Ramadan and I needed to collect some travel documents for our Christmas holiday and put a deposit on the Patrol. What I didn't know was that I would get stuck in a traffic jam for 75 minutes on the corner of Hera'a Mall. Perhaps this is another feature of Ramadan. Unsurprisingly, everything was shut when I eventually got to the shops, the cash machines had run out of money and I returned from a fruitless journey at 1.30. It reminded me why we tried never to go out on a Thursday night in K****t but it's all a learning process, I suppose.

Riders on the Storm

2006-10-12T13:01:00.000+03:00

I had a visit from the Saudi shipping agents this morning. I can't remember if I've been keeping you up to date with the saga of our missing items. To summarise as briefly as possible, I insured the stuff, bits went awol, including the computer, the shippers won't process the claim as I signed the form to say everything was here in good order but the signatures on the paperwork don't match. Anyway, it's rather tedious but inshallah we are seeing some progress. The shippers here have been trying to avoid all responsibility which is making me more aggravated. Today, they came over and got me to fill in another claim form. I'd done one at the time as a picture had got broken but that has been cancelled and I've added the computer to the missing list. It's probably a bit underhand but the stuff has legitimately gone missing so I have a clear conscience about claiming for it, regardless of what has been signed on delivery.

Kim had a bit of an eventful shopping trip this morning. The school lays on a shopping bus on Thursdays and it's usually busy. Today there was a bit of a mix up and someone got left behind at the supermarket. It wasn't too far away but she didn't know the way home, nor did the taxi she took and the guards wouldn't let the taxi into the compound as it didn't have a pass. Obviously she was very upset about the whole matter. It kind of brought home the difficulties of being here, especially for a single woman. It has become frustrating, not being able to get anywhere at our convenience so the sooner we get transport the better. How it must feel for women who will be forever dependent on others, I don't know.

The Long and Winding Road

2006-10-11T20:18:00.000+03:00

We're on holiday now. Yippee! Although we've only done 5 weeks I think we feel that we could do with one. How we managed in the past with no break for the first 12 I don't know. A lot of the old staff seem to be jetting off to foreign lands and most of the new staff seem to be staying here as the 2 weeks were kind of sprung on us before we had a chance to organise anything. Some people are going on down to Taif, which is in the mountains about 4 hours away. I think it would be nice if we could go down as well, transport allowing.

It looks as though we're going to be getting a Patrol through our Nissan contact. It's enormous and impractical and therefore well suited to the roads here. I'm thinking more about keeping other drivers away than bouncing over sand dunes. One of our friends is waiting on the arrival of his new Land Rover. It looks lovely but is in another league, financially speaking. I've been trying to hire a car for the last couple of days but Ramadan hours for business don't really fit with the need to sleep for school so it's a bit hard. Plus, when I do get to the dealers after they promise to have a car ready, of course it isn't there. Maybe tonight I could get lucky.

We were supposed to be having a meal with the Middle School staff tomorrow night but the extra holiday means there won't be many around. However, we've booked the nanny so we're thinking of having an adult evening at a restaurant with some other friends. It'll be the first one since Windsor and a chance to have a bit of a look around Jeddah. Then it's the Off Runway Players' social on Saturday so it'll be all go in the evenings.

A Hard Habit To Break

2006-10-09T16:10:00.000+03:00

I'm slipping out of the habit of posting on here. I guess this new school is keeping me busier than the old one although it seems that the work is easier. I suppose there's more to do outside school in terms of the compound life. I've got the 5-a-side game again this evening and, now I'm directing a play I'm busy another 2 evenings a week.

I also got my driving licence today so I should be mobile soon. I think I could rent a car on my UK licence but I'm ready to buy one now. It was the usual faff at the licence testing centre. We queued up with a lot of Arabs and Asians, got shuffled through into a small room and had our eyes tested. That involved looking at two letters in a mirror and saying what they were. They weren't even the smallest letters on the chart but those in our group who don't wear glasses had to read three letters so I got off lightly. I doubt I will ever have to do another eye test so it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about the standard of driver.

While we were queueing, some chap tried to push in front of us. One of the other teachers spoke Arabic and told him, in no uncertain terms, to get back in his place. The other guy tried brazening it out and when that didn't work, asked if he could go behind us. The teacher told him to get back exactly where he'd been as it would be just as unfair for him to push in front of people behind us. The pushing itself didn't surprise me, what with living in Kuwait for 7 years. What did come as a surprise was the meekness with which the guy went back to his place and waited another 10 minutes. Obviously he wasn't a Saudi but he seemed to have accepted that he was utterly in the wrong and didn't struggle all that much, which makes me think why he bothered pushing in the first place. The English teachers in the queue just looked at their shoes the whole time and muttered about what bad manners it was, without ever doing anything about it.

I Say A Little Prayer

2006-10-06T08:45:00.000+03:00

Half way through Ramadan now and it still seems to be going quickly. After the coming week we'll be on an extended Eid holiday, thanks once again to the Holiday King, who has given us all 2 weeks as opposed to just the one. Of course, the school doesn't really like that and has taken back a week's worth of holidays from other times in the year. Unfortunately, as we are still getting organised in terms of iqamas and paperwork, we haven't arranged a trip away. We might try to get somewhere like the chalet we stayed at in Kheiran (see April or May posts) but we'll have to wait until after Ramadan. It won't be as much fun having a holiday when I'm fasting.

However, I'm not participating in Ramadan alone. A certain little girl has decided that she likes to 'sing' her prayers and keeps asking me if it's time to do it. It's weird having Hannah nag me to say my prayers, instead of my Mum who usually does it, but it's nice as well. She tries to say 'Allahoakbar' but is having trouble with the pronunciation. Just like me.

Writing To Reach You

2006-10-04T19:56:00.000+03:00

We had our first read through for 'Love Letters' a couple of nights ago. The two actors got a grip on the text pretty quickly and were able to bring out elements of the character even at this early stage. I'm sure it's going to be a good show.

The difference between doing a show here and doing it at KLT is that they always do dinner theatre here. We've started planning the menu for the performaces of 'Letters' already. It looks like we'll be doing clam chowder, chicken Maryland and apple pie and ice cream. I've no idea what two of those things are but I know they've got a regional theme that fits in with the locations in the play so that should provide an extra frisson.

Here's a picture of the chicken dish. It has bananas!

Long Distance Runaround (for Andy)

2006-10-03T23:32:00.000+03:00

Some of you may have received an email from me recently, informing you of a change to my email address. If you didn't, it's because I don't like you and it's about time you faced up to the fact. I had a similar moment of self-awareness when my family moved house part way through my first term at university, but forgot to tell me until I tried to come home.

Speaking of university (and what a lovely shift that was), one of the people to whom I sent the change of address message was an old friend from uni with whom I had lost contact. Too many whoms, what do you think? She replied and said that she was now living in Dubai, a mere stone's throw away in relative terms. Not only that but she has now become an avid reader of this blog! Well, I may be exaggerating that a teensy bit. She said she'd seen it at least. Anyway, I'm exceedingly glad that we have reforged the link between us and I would like to say to mystery friend X and any other friends that I may have who are reading this that just because I am too lazy to contact you and therefore use this blog instead, it does not give you an excuse to be too lazy to leave a comment or contact me. So there.

Cars

2006-10-03T23:16:00.000+03:00

It's been a busy few days lately, which is my way of trying to find excuses for not posting anything for a while. Progress has not been made on the car front. Last time I mentioned it I was thinking of a Nissan. As it turns out, and try to hold yourselves together as the shock hits you, the deal we were told about wasn't as good as it sounded. Instead of an impressive 10-15K discount we are looking at a paltry 2K chip at the cash mountain that will be needed. Plus, we've been told that the Pathfinder and Armada are dogs to drive and only the Patrol (happily, the most expensive) will be good enough.

So, with that in mind we took ourselves down to the used car souq the other night. Conveniently situated about 45 minutes away from where we live in a remote and unsignposted part of the Jeddah suburbs, it was extremely busy and rather hot, despite the fact that we stayed there until 11.30. We had to fight our way through rather more than the usual crowd of half-blind road ragers as there were gangs of men hanging around the roundabouts and road junctions, flagging down the cars in apparent attempts to buy anything that passed by.

We split into two groups and wandered around for a couple of hours but didn't really find anything. It seems to be a bit dodgy insofar as the prices seem to go up in relation to the whiteness of your skin. It also seems as though the cars have done an astonishing number of miles and it's only the high mileage ones that are reasonably priced. Not knowing whether the miles have been done by the proverbial one careful owner or by a reckless dune basher makes us somewhat hesitant. The whole place seems to be limited to American cars, saloons and Land Cruisers anyway, none of which are what I want. Perhaps we'll have to go for a new one and get peace of mind to compensate for an empty wallet.

I had another interesting drive today as well. I'd asked a fellow inmate to give me a lift to a nearby ATM to get some money for my driving licence tomorrow. While he was driving me there I dropped asleep as a result of the Ramadan hardship I'm suffering. Upon waking I noticed it was an hour later and we appeared to be almost at the car souq. The attentive amongst you will remember that it is not near our compound. Anyway, we drove around getting progressively more lost, missed iftar, eventually found IKEA (which was his preferred destination), discovered everything was closed due to the aforementioned iftar and drove home again, stopping only for me to visit the nearby ATM. Two and half hours of travel in order to go to a place 5 minutes away.

Something For The Weekend

2006-09-29T19:45:00.000+03:00

A bit of a strange weekend so far. The trip to Nissan didn't turn out as well as expected. We got lost on the way and took a tour of the dodgy car part souq but eventually got there and had a look around the Pathfinder, Murano and Armada. They were nice looking cars, even if the Armada is more of a house on wheels, but the 'deal' wasn't anything like what we'd been led to believe. It was more like a couple of hundred quid off, rather than a couple of thousand. So, we're still looking, as they say.

Today I went off for the first read through of 'Run For Your Wife', in which I'd been cast as some policeman or other. I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic about the role as the play had clearly been pre-cast and I didn't like that. So, when the other cast members said that they were still short a woman and may have to cancel, I quickly suggested Kim. It would mean that I would have to drop out but I didn't mind that. In the meantime, the director didn't turn up and, in his absence, RFYW was postponed until February and I talked myself into directing 'Love Letters' to fill the gap. It's a bit Don Campbell-Thomson but needs must. So, Kim's got the female lead in a play in Feb and I've got to get ready to direct a show starting on Tuesday.

Moving Fast

2006-09-27T20:00:00.000+03:00

Not much going on at the moment. I'm off out later to have a look at a car. The husband of Kim's year head reckons he can get a good deal on Nissans so I might go for the Pathfinder if the price is right.

Kim's off out as well for some sort of girl's night out at a masseur or pedicurist. Some other ladies from the middle school went a couple of days ago and got rather more massaged than they were intending by the enthusiastic Phillipino masseur. I think Kim is hoping to avoid that although she has put on clean underwear.

Ramadan has started and over here that means business as usual at school. No more shorter hours and coming in at 9 like we did in Kuwait. The kids seem to be getting by as they normally do and only about 5 of them are fasting in my class. Personally, I think it's better for everyone if we just act as if Ramadan were any other month of the year. I've always thought that's what you're supposed to do, not use it as an excuse to sleep all day and eat all night.

One of our friends on the compound, who teaches in the upper school, said that he thought I'd be able to get a job up there easily. He said that he was surprised when he found out that I was a middle school teacher. I don't know quite what he meant by that but as he (along with most other upper school teachers) thinks that the upper school is better, I guess he meant it as a compliment. On days when I have to tell some kids several times to write the date, open the book or just to stop cutting up the table with their ruler, I think I would prefer to be teaching an older age group. Perhaps I'm just kidding myself that they would be any better though.

We've started a nice little routine here on Wednesday evenings. A group of us, specifically the ones with kids, sit outside the houses having food and drinks, enjoying the warm evenings and having a good relax. I think it's started already so I shall leave you for now.

Give Peace A Chance

2006-09-24T21:04:00.000+03:00

I've had to come up and do a bit of blogging because I've been so infuriated by the programme on BBC World at the moment. There is a group of Nobel Peace Prize winners, clustered around some idiot presenter, being asked about terrorism and the chances of peace in the world, or something like that. I couldn't stay to watch the resolution of any questions because this woman is saying such moronic things. Desmond Tutu was explaining that the 'war on terror' will not end until we remove the causes of desperation in the world. The presenter then accused him of trying to justify terrorism and was basically put straight in no uncertain terms by a feisty Canadian on the panel. She then wittered on about whether people should talk to terrorists and gave the example of Israel talking to Hamas. I should say that most people around the world would consider Israel a terrorist nation but this woman could not see, despite one of the panel telling her, that states can be terrorists as well as individuals. It seemed to be literally incomprehensible to her that, for example, the US, UK or any other western-supported governement could ever be terrorist in its actions. Terrorism is always done by 'them'. Obviously most UK politicians think that as well but to see it spelled out so clearly and in the face of immediate rebuttal by such knowledgeable people is still depressing.

On the Beach

2006-09-24T20:55:00.000+03:00

We've just had our first holiday of the year. It was Saudi National Day on Saturday and the beloved King, Abdullah, has declared that it should be a day of rest. Apparently, this is only the second year it has happened so we've got here just in time.

We spent the day at Silver Sands, which is the beach that the school rents for its outdoor education programme. We went down with the Murphys and the Moores from a couple of doors down. It wasn't the easiest journey, what with 8 people in one Pajero, but we got there in the end. The place itself, like most private beaches, is about half an hour away from our house, towards the north. Most of the land nearby is privately owned and the public has little access to sandy, bathing beaches. There's a creek not too far away but those places get horrendously crowded with locals and people swim in full abayas and that sort of thing.

We had a nice little paddle, the kids built sandcastles and we all got home without getting too badly burned. Today, I went back to the beach again with my class for the first of their two outdoor ed days. Each class in Y3 and 4 goes to the beach twice, learns how to kayak and windsurf and does various 'team building' exercises. It's supposed to give them a grounding in water sports and to also create a bit of team spirit and less of a sense of selfishness which can often be seen in these parts. My lot certainly enjoyed it and it's great that the school has a resource like this for the kids to use. Even Hannah will be off for her day in the sun eventually.

Unfortunately, I won't be going tomorrow because we have to go off to the hospital for a swab. The school nurse has set up an appointment with the Infectious Diseases specialist who will try to find out who's carrying the MRSA which Han keeps getting.

Dirty Laundry

2006-09-21T21:37:00.000+03:00

We had a lovely day out with the kiddies today. One of the other mothers on the compound organised a trip out to a place called 'Stationery Fantasies' where we could admire Jeddah's largest public collection of paper clips. Actually, it wasn't that and although there was a stationery shop on the ground floor, there were also three more floors of activities and games for the kids.

They baked made their own biscuits first of all, rolling out the prepared mixture. Then they moved to another room and coloured t-shirts with marker pens. James rather spoiled his by scribbling instead of colouring so I tried to improve it with my own designs. I also wrote "Don't mess with the J-Man!!" on the back so he won't be ashamed to be seen in it. The rest of the time was spent shuttling between different play areas: ball pool, mini-go kart things, play shops and that kind of thing. Hannah loved it and there were loads of other kids from the compound as well so it was pretty sociable.

There was an unfortunate incident when we returned as Kim discovered I'd dyed her new white top pink. Anyone could have done it really. As she'd only worn it twice I think she was a bit miffed. I discovered I'd done it when I heard her scream "Oh my.....!!" from upstairs.

We bought Hannah a little scooter today. It's a Dora the Explorer one and it's got three wheels. She was scooting round the sports shop while I was looking at trainers and she loved it. She was crying at dinner in the shopping centre because I took her Sprite away but when I told her I wouldn't fix the scooter she snapped out of it in 0.1 of a second and started eating. It was fairly tricky to do and the tools they gave me were useless so I didn't finish it before her bedtime. Kim told her that she should go to sleep and when she woke up it would be there. Hannah looked like all her Christmases had come at once, ironically.

She also told us that she always dreams about wolves, which scare her a lot. I think that's the end of the Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood for a while. She really likes those stories though so it's strange to think they terrify her as well.

There's pictures of today's trip in the flickr box on the left side of the main page.

End of a Century

2006-09-17T21:02:00.000+03:00

One hundred gone and I didn't even notice.

I think we're getting closer to settling in now. I don't know if having a car will make it easier but I do feel ever so slightly trapped inasmuch as I can't just go out at the drop of a hat. I guess it'll be like that all the time for Kim so I shouldn't complain.

Our first holiday comes up next Saturday. Apparently it's the second ever National Day holiday. These decadent Saudi rulers have obviously betrayed the spirit of the past and decided that it might be nice to give people a day off for something other than religious reasons. Ramadan is about to start as well and I'm off to the beach with the class for a couple of days, right at the beginning of it. Ho hum.

It was Colour Day at school today. On the sixth day since the Glorious Promotion I was put in charge of arranging 15 minutes of activities for each house, imaginatively named North, South, East and....West. I bet you thought I was going to say something different at the end there. Not being blessed with imagination and a solid work ethic, I 'created' a series of games based on charades and Pictionary. The kids seemed to enjoy it so that's what counts, isn't it.

It's the first auditions for the Jeddah theatre on Tuesday. The group is called the Off Runway Players, as I think I mentioned. They're doing 'Run For Your Wife' fairly soon and Kim and I are going down to audition. We'll tell them they can only have one of us so it'll be a bit of a competition for parts! Doing an old Ray Cooney makes it feel like KLT in the old days when we'd just started, before Tim dragged it kicking and screaming into the 1990s. I don't know if we'll be able to do the same here but I hope that we have as much fun.

New Art Riot

2006-09-15T13:57:00.000+03:00

I saw a little report on the BBC about an exhibition in Los Angeles, USA by an artist called Banksy. I saw one of his books in Windsor as well and I thought some of his pictures were quite amusing. I think he's probably seen more as a practical joker than anything more serious but, what the hey.

In his latest work he's painted an elephant in order to make it blend in with the wallpaper in a lounge. It's supposed to be making a point about global poverty (the elephant in the room that nobody mentions, you see) according to the stuff on the BBC website. In his other work he has painted idyllic scenes on the Palestinian side of the Israeli apartheid wall, which look really tranquil. Whether that is any comfort to those who have been the victims of the wall, I doubt. I don't know how comfortable I feel with the idea that those who are suffering are being used as the backdrop to a stunt of this kind. Obviously, they are made to parade around in order to serve the publicity needs of hundreds of politicians as well but nobody believes politicians when they say that they care.

Rome Munich Rome

2006-09-15T13:24:00.000+03:00

My neighbour was asking me if I'd seen what the Pope has done now. Not the most obvious beginning to a conversation but we have been having a few discussions about religious ideas, philosophy and local politics so he knew I'd be likely to have an opinion. One question he raised with me, for which I did not know the answer, is; If God is omnipotent, can he set himself a task he cannot fulfil? I suppose it's more of a logical paradox, rather than a question as such. Perhaps my mum could ask my dad what he thinks of it.

Anyway, for those who take little interest in such matters, the usual suspects of self-appointed Islamic leaders have rushed to condemn the Pope, apparently for making derogatory comments about Islam and the concept of jihad. There's more about it here, including a link to the speech the Pope gave.

I have to say, I gave the majority of the speech a perfunctory once over but I read the pertinent bits at the beginning and it seems that he is only quoting a Byzantine Emperor's opinion, not stating his own. It may be that the Pope shares the Emperor's opinion entirely but I think it would be unfair to criticise him for that when we cannot know for certain. Nevertheless, plenty of people, including the Parliament of Pakistan, have rushed to ridicule themselves by demanding he apologise to the Muslim 'nation' (whatever that might be) and comparing him to crusader Popes.

Personally, and speaking as a Muslim, I find myself much more offended by the bizarre rantings of these people, than by anything the Pope has said. One of the teachers in the upper school here was discussing sayings and writings on peace as there is a Peace Day coming up which we are commemorating. His students were suggesting all sorts of passages from different languages but none mentioned Arabic. When he asked them if there was no part of the Quran that could be read out in assembly he was told that it would not be appropriate to do so. Now, I know that this is just the ill-informed opinion of a teenaged child but someone has told them that the Quran is not to be read at certain times. How can that not be offensive and repugnant? I would much prefer to hear what Youssef al-Qardawi or the Muslim Brotherhood have to say about that than what they think about a speech they appear not to have read.

The Childcatcher

2006-09-14T09:29:00.000+03:00

The nanny situation is resolving itself today, we hope. After being left high and dry (there's a title) by the Cooper's maid, we thought we'd get around it by leaving the kids in school till we came to collect them at 2.30ish. Unfortunately, they were both completely exhausted by that point and their routines have been shifted back an hour. So when someone on the compound said their maid was looking for an afternoon job, we snapped their hands off. She seems ok and we're having another meeting this morning. She should then be able to pick up James at 12.30 and then go back for Han at 1.30ish. It will also allow us to stay and do a bit of finishing off at school in the afternoons.

I had my first ever promotion this week! I am now the new House Leader for East at the British International School, Jeddah. I don't know how many thousands of riyals a month this enormously responsible position will earn for me but we do have a 'Colour Day' next week so it's straight into the thick of things!

Kim's been off badmintoning as well as doing her aerobic dvd thing. I even did a jog and went to the fitness room last night. We'll be Mr and Mrs Charles Atlas soon enough.

Car pricing later today and then a barbeque with Kim's year head at the posh compound next door.

Money's Too Tight To Mention

2006-09-10T21:52:00.000+03:00

Approaching the 100 post mark now. Gosh, I hope I can maintain the solid gold quality of the blog so far.

With barely a third of the month gone, we seem to have run out of money. We're weighing up whether to collect the dry cleaning (perhaps 13 ties was a bit extravagant) or to take Hannah for her doctor's appointment tomorrow. She's had a swab to check what her skin infection might be. The whisper on the underground grapevine is that it could be staphlococcal impetigo but let's see what the doctor says. The remedy for it is loads of antibiotics, surprise surprise. We'll have to hope that NBK and SABB come up with the goods in the next couple of days and push the money transfer through. Otherwise I'll have to put everything on the Visa and there's not many taxis that'll take it.

Kim did her fitness work out yesterday and broke in her first pair of trainers in years. There's a group of ladies who do workouts to a dvd and Kim started off on the 2 mile routine. She'll be building up to 4 miles eventually which, as I struggled to waddle 3 laps of the track last night, is quite an achievement. We've already lost quite a lot of weight because we can't organise ourselves to eat and what with not being able to afford food now we'll be hardly visible when we stand sideways this time next month.

Speaking of the ORP last post, we've heard from a few people who know people we know. Our head used to work at NES and remembers Dilys and the Tathams. One of the chaps at the ORP do knew David and Rowena. If we ever wander beyond the Middle East we may not see the same effect but it sure seems like a small world round here.

Get Off The Stage

2006-09-09T22:55:00.000+03:00

We had our first social of the year tonight. We left the kids in the care of Debs, from a couple of doors down, and went off to the Off Runway Players social evening. It was quite a friendly place and there were a lot of new faces there, apparently. We had a chat to a few people and looked through the Silver Jubilee yearbook. There were a few mentions of David and a photo of him and Colin Hawthorne.

There were the usual theatre weirdos as well. I won't go into detail because we'll probably be doing stuff with them in future but it's the typical kind of crowd that the stage attracts. However, we may find that we are starting to fill the KLT shaped hole in our lives.

James had his first PE lesson today. He was running around with a beach ball and clambering through tunnels, according to his teacher. There's quite a little gang of them at creche now, compared to last year. Apparently James was clinging on to Rebecca (his teacher) and having a bit of a tussle with a girl over who would sit on teacher's lap. She said he grabbed her leg and held on when she was trying to leave as well. Perhaps we've found his favourite lesson.

We haven't really seen much of Jeddah yet. There's been bus trips to malls but the country and its people are a closed book so far. Perhaps we'll find it hard to get to see the 'real' bits. It seems a bit intimidating at the moment, thinking about having to drive around. The other road users are lunatics, like K****t, and the place seems a lot bigger. There's malls and shops near us but I think we're out on the edge and indiginous Jeddah is a long way off.

The Boys Are Back In Town

2006-09-07T11:19:00.000+03:00

I know it's been a while but we've been so busy trying to settle in and get used to things that we haven't had time to keep up with the blog. Anyway, now it's the weekend so it's a bit of a breathing space for us.

So far school has been fine and looks like it will be getting easier as we settle into the routine. I think that all the curriculum and schemes of work are in place and everything seems tightly organised and thoroughly planned. People keep saying that we just have to slot into the system and it will tick along without too much input on our behalf. We'll see.

I was off playing a bit of 5-a-side on Monday night and ended up becoming assistant coach to the under-16s a couple of days later, which is probably very amusing to Ben and Carl. Apparently they are a very good team so let's hope I don't muck it up for them.

Kim's been off on the women's bus for a tour of a mall and we've been shopping to other malls a couple of times. Otherwise we've had plenty to do around the compound. I've tried putting a picture on the blog but that particular bit of the site was blocked for some reason. I'll put the pictures on our flickr page, which you can access by clicking on the little pictures in the left side bar.

Hannah's made a little friend next door called Heather. She's 5 and has a 3 year old sister called Mary Jo so they've been playing a lot. James joins in sometimes and plays with a boy called Xander a couple of doors down. There's a feeling of being in a little village here. We're always popping into each other's houses and seeing each other round the playground or in the pool. We may not have expected to enjoy that before we came but the people are nice and it's working well so far.

When Tomorrow Comes

2006-09-03T21:47:00.000+03:00

Only 9 and a half hours to go until the start of school. I don't think we've ever felt this under prepared but everyone keeps telling us that this is normal and things will click into place soon enough. Let's hope so.

Anyway, tomorrow I shall walk into the class room, face the 17 children who are on my list and try to think of something to do. I shall try not to think too much about Han and James. They had a stressful beginning to creche this morning. Hannah wasn't really enjoying it as she was surrounded by babies. Apparently, she and James were holding hands all day. That just shows how traumatised they were, as far as I can see. However, Hannah will be off with her own class tomorrow, hopefully with more advanced things to do. The creche staff seem very nice and once the rush has died down they should be able to get things on a normal footing.

Here's a picture of the house as soon as we arrived.

Here's a view across the playground towards our house.

A Quick One

2006-09-01T21:55:00.000+03:00

Just time for a lightning post as I'm borrowing someone's lead to connect to the internet.

We're in the house now; it's really nice, the school looks lovely, we've got our shipping but the computer has vanished and I don't know what's happened to it, the other people are nice, there's lots of families here, Hannah's made a few friends and the kids are always in and out of each other's houses, meetings start tomorrow, kids in on Monday.

That's all for now. More another time.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

2006-08-28T21:45:00.000+03:00

That's the Liza Minelli version, of course.

So, we're off tomorrow. Me, Kim, Hannah, James and 140kg of luggage. We may have to ransom one of the children in order to pay the excess baggage charges. Or, the airline could be kind. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Ohhh! (wipes tear from eye)

We're really ready to go now; this has been a much longer holiday than normal. We used to go back to K****t about 2 weeks before school started but the Conti have brought us out with just 5 days to go. So it's going to be frantic shopping and adjusting when we do arrive. Carl and Liv had a terrible journey, apparently. Things have relaxed a teeny, tiny bit at Heathrow so we may be able to get Spencer Bear onboard. Not so sure about the extra suitcase.

Nevertheless, we have arrived at that familiar point, dear reader, where I must bring the sad news of a temporary adjournment in my epistolary offerings. We will have the computer in the house but I'm not sure about the internet connection so it may be several days before we meet again. Au revoir mes enfants.

Me and the Farmer

2006-08-27T15:22:00.000+03:00

Had a lovely, busy day yesterday, which is why there was no post. We arranged to meet the Nash's at Bockett's Farm, which is about half way between us and them. It was pouring with rain when we woke up but it had stopped by the time we arrived, more or less.

The kids had a really good time, and I'm including big Hannah in that! There were lots of animals for them to feed and stroke, pig racing, pony riding for Han, trampolines, playgrounds and all sorts of other stuff. We stayed there all day and didn't run out of things to do. We went to a nearby restaurant for dinner in the evening and despite a mishap involving pea jus, it was a great meal. It was lovely to catch up with them again, especially as Rob and Hannah were there as well. We couldn't ask for a nicer family to have as our friends and we're very lucky to know them.

There's plenty more photos on the flickr site which you can get to from that link in the left sidebar.

No Place Like London

2006-08-26T00:22:00.000+03:00

I know you'll be wondering this so I'm going to tell you. The reason why I didn't make a post yesterday is because I was out in London. It was my turn to hit the town, after Kim had been up the day before to see Lorraine. So, I trotted up there, got a £20 fine for travelling from Windsor to Slough without a ticket, and had a grand day out.

As it was primarily a theatre-going trip, I dashed off to see if I could get tickets for Billy Elliot but there were none to be had for love nor money. So, I resolved to make do with second best and ended up with the matinee of Evita and the evening performance of Les Miserables.

Evita was a bit of a dud for me. I was stuck up in the upper circle but I had a good view. The problem was the music. I don't want to sound pretentious and God knows I don't really know what I'm talking about but it seemed to be a bit repetetive. The singing wasn't always clear either, especially from the lead. She was actually the second understudy so it was a bit of a break for her. I don't know what happened to the lead and the original understudy. Hardly any of the songs did anything for me. Only 'Another Suitcase', which isn't even sung by principals. And the ending was the worst I have ever seen.

Luckily, Les Mis, as we afficionados call it, was excellent. It helped that I knew more of the songs thanks to Mad Musicals but it is also much more of a show; dramatic, emotional, moving. The two male leads were amazing, especially Valjean. There was a problem with this one as well though. Every time Cosette was onstage with Valjean I started blubbing. Whenever Fantine was telling Valjean about Cosette I started blubbing. When Valjean was telling anyone about Cosette I started blubbing. Of course, the whole death bit at the end got me blubbing as well but lot's of people were doing that. I think it's something to do with being a father. Anything that refers to dads looking after daughters or daughters being in danger (say, left with a pair of good for nothing inn keepers)and it sets me off. I just think of my little Han and I go blubbery. Maybe I should only go to see shows that have no father/daughter activity.

Did You Steal My Money?

2006-08-25T21:07:00.000+03:00

My brother has just got ripped off on ebay. He sent off his £165 to buy an i-pod but the chappie at the other end somehow failed to send the i-pod in return. Consequently, here are some top tips for prospective purchasers. Tips that I somehow didn't manage to pass on to my brother!

1. Do not buy from anyone who has more than 2.5% negative feedback. A fairly arbitrary number, I know, but you need a cut off point somewhere.

2. Do not buy from anyone who has less than 10 comments in feedback.

3. The more expensive the item you're hoping to buy, the more positive feedback you should look for. I should say at least 1 positive comment for every £5 you're spending.

4. Do not buy from someone who has been a member for less than a month. In fact, the more expensive the item, the more time you should require them to have been active. Let's make another arbitrary cut off point;1 month for every £10.

It would be nice to have 5 points to make it seem a bit of a fuller figure but I can leave one for my devoted readers to suggest. I can't say that you'll be safe if you follow those guidelines but it should give you a place to start.

Here's Where The Story Ends

2006-08-23T23:25:00.000+03:00

Ok, so, it's bedtime, Hannah doesn't want to go as she's a bit of a night owl. She also wants one of us to stay with her till she falls asleep. Lately she's been telling us that she's been dreaming of wolves. I blame the old BBC version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe myself. Anyway, back in K****t we had loads of books for her, some of which I've reviewed on Amazon (plug, plug), such as Little Rabbit Goes To School and the usual classics like Each Peach Pear Plum. Anyway, we don't have that kind of thing here so we're having to come up with different stuff. For a while we made do with other books that we'd bought or that my mum has around the house. Now though, Kim has starte reading The Magic Faraway Tree. I did a bit of it myself tonight but Hannah fell asleep before I got to the end of the chapter. I was thinking though, am I a bad dad for reading Enid Blyton? Isn't she so old and out of date that no decent parent has read for 20 years? It'll be Roald Dahl next, I'm telling you.

What Have I Done To Deserve This?

2006-08-22T20:22:00.000+03:00

Speak in haste, repent at leisure. Is that the phrase I'm looking for? After giving in to a completely uncharacteristic moan about not being invited to use the new version of Blogger, I have now received the precious invite! But now I don't know what to do with it because I don't know if you can edit HTML and there may not be any 3-column templates available. What to do?

Somebody's Watching Me

2006-08-22T00:35:00.000+03:00

Just heard this on the BBC news. A family from Dubai were refused entry to the London Eye because they were...wait for it...speaking Arabic. A security guard became suspicious when he overheard them talking to each other and looking in their bag. After sending the 65 year old man back to Waterloo Station (which isn't that close by) while his brother-in-law and sister were held in a secure area, they were then let on board following a second body search. Apparently the man had been living in London for 30 years.

When will these people learn? I mean, they come over here, flouncing around, wanting to take our places on tourist attractions. Why don't they just go back to their own country if they want to be tourists and let decent English tourists do the sight-seeing? Look at the picture of him, he's brown! You just can't do things like that when you're brown! And what were they doing trying to speak one of those silly foreign languages anyway! It's just asking for trouble. Why can't they just speak English like normal people? I won't even go into the story about the pilot who ordered two men off his plane because they were acting 'suspiciously'. It's getting so English people can't go abroad without having to see foreigners nowadays.

Just in case you didn't know, I'm joking but it certainly puts my earlier post about the racism in Saudi Arabia into perspective. Every time I come back to England I always find reasons why I'm glad to leave. This year there seem to be more than ever.

Marriage Bureau Rendezvous

2006-08-21T21:40:00.000+03:00

I saw a couple of stories today about what will be our new home. The first, on the BBC, was another one about militants being shot by police. It's not particularly worrying, especially with scores of 'militants' being rounded up by police in the UK. While they may not actually have been shot on this occasion, I'm sure they've been getting some pretty aggressive interrogation in Paddington Green or wherever they've been locked up.

The other one was a bit more interesting and was on the Arab News site. Apparently a woman has had her happy marriage annuled because the husband is not from a 'noble' tribe. To be fair, the paper seems to be highlighting the obvious iniquity of the judge's order, which makes me feel as though Saudi Arabia is a bit more open to dissent than one may have thought. On the other hand, the fact that such an action can take place at all makes one despair of the racist, sexist alien culture we are moving to. If it were K****t I would expect the woman to be murdered by her half-brother shortly after he had given the police a promise not to harm her. Let's hope Saudi police are a little more cynical.

Lean On Me

2006-08-20T15:30:00.000+03:00

Kim got back today, just before James went off for his nap. He and Hannah were delighted to see her, naturally, as was I. The family are all back together again.

Kim's had a bit of a hard time over the past few days, sorting out her grandma's things and saying goodbye to her family for another year, especially her grandma. When people get to a certain age or a certain level of health, you can't help thinking to yourself that you need to make the most of this time that you have with them. I suppose it's particularly true for such as ourselves, who are away from family for 10 months a year. On the other hand you should make the most of all the time you have with your family and try not to get irritated when they eat all the bread or drink the milk, leaving the kids without any. But when you think you might be seeing them for the last time; it's hard.

Anyway, Nikki and Andy gave Kim a lovely card, thanking her for all that she's done for them in the last week. We were lucky to have Josie around when Jimbo popped out but it would have been hard for them trying to do it by themselves. In the card it said that they were grateful that Kim was there when they needed her and that made me think. That is pretty much the condition I aspire to: to be dependable and be ready to share the burden for anyone when they need it. Of course, with family, one wouldn't even have to ask but it's nice to be appreciated all the same. Perhaps this goes back to when someone was there for me when I needed a friend. It gives me enough for a new (academic) year's resolution at least.

I Can Cook Too

2006-08-19T15:59:00.000+03:00

Wasn't really sure if that's the real title of the song, till Tim told me. Katha sang it in Mad Musicals.

The reason for the post is this.

Which is a little activity we did to while away the hours until Kim returns. My Little Chef did some of the mixing and putting the rice paper pictures on the cakes. She also did a bit of tasting but not as much as me. The problem now is trying to put her off eating them until Kim arrives, hopefully tomorrow.

In These Shoes?

2006-08-18T00:13:00.000+03:00

I bought some new ones today. What with my pipe dream of doing exercise when we get to Saudi, I thought I'd get a new pair of trainers, the better to do it with. Obviously, being a Yorkshireman, I searched out the best sale, found one in Slough and bought these.

I took the picture with the flash on, as it's a bit dark. That's why there's a very bright bit around the tongue. Hannah picked the colour, as opposed to a less unsightly pair in blue. I should be able to get plenty of exercise in those. Running away from the hordes of laughing onlookers.

Unwanted

2006-08-16T23:25:00.000+03:00

There's a new version of Blogger available in beta. It has categories and other good stuff. You have to be invited to test it. I haven't been. Boo hoo.

If you want to find out more about it you can go here.

Castles Made Of Sand

2006-08-15T14:42:00.000+03:00

I went for a walk with the bobs this morning. We wandered over the bridge to a little island in the middle of the Thames. Hannah fed the ducks and swans and James ran around doing duck impressions, mostly waddling. Then we wandered along the island a bit more. They played on a fallen log, walked through stinging nettles and shouted under the railway bridge. I managed to get this picture of the castle.

It isn't too clear because I had to get it on maximum zoom and it's a bit of a cloudy day today. But it does give you a good idea of how the castle looms over the river and dominates the town, from this perspective at least. When you get into the town centre it's harder to see it through the crush of fast food joints and meandering tourists. However, seeing it reminds me of how much I enjoy being in Windsor and England, at least, the bits that look like this. There's lots of greenery, some wildlife and a magnificent bit of history to focus one's mind on something other than the immediate present. If I was living in some over-populated, over-concreted urban wasteland I wouldn't like being in England so much but I'm lucky enough to be here at the moment.

That's my thought for the day.

Jamie

2006-08-14T22:29:00.000+03:00

The big day in the Cunningham household has arrived. Jamie Anthony was born at 10.55 this morning in Derby. I presume it was the Royal Infirmary but I don't know. Kim, who is on the scene, has more info but she's up to her ears in visiting relatives and aunty duties so she hasn't had time to find out the full story.

Apparently, mother and new son are doing well, the baby is placid and healthy and looks just like James when he was born. So he will obviously grow up to be devastatingly handsome. When Kim emails me a photo I will put it on.

Edit: 15/08/06 Here he is.

Best wishes to Mum and Dad.

Twisting By The Pool

2006-08-13T23:24:00.000+03:00

After an angry phone call (see below), I have been instructed to post different pictures, this time featuring some of the children.

Here are Hannah and James in the paddling pool at Nanny's house in Derby. They enjoyed splashing under the little roof and trying to squirt each other, and the dog, with the mushroom fountain.

World, Shut Your Mouth

2006-08-13T16:22:00.000+03:00

Here is the post that will cause amusement, anger, fear and a total freeze in marital relations. It was just after we got back from Cornwall and it must have been a tiring drive for Kim.

Rabbit, Rabbit

2006-08-13T15:57:00.000+03:00

We visited Carl and Livvy for Josh's christening and the next day we went off to Mead Open Farm. One of the treats on offer was 'Pick Your Own Rabbits' and here's a picture of Josh choosing a particularly tasty looking one.

Man, I Feel Like A Woman

2006-08-13T14:51:00.000+03:00

Kim of the future. This is what her life will be like, which is why she looks so happy.

Paint A Vulgar Picture

2006-08-13T14:28:00.000+03:00

Hurrah! After going through various boxes in preparation for Kim's departure, I found the cd which will allow me to post pictures from Kim's old phone. What luck, as you will now be treated to the above delights. I shall begin in chronological order and offer each picture under a different heading.
That was me on our trip to Drayton Manor. It rained, clearly. I mean, I wouldn't go around wearing an oversized, yellow plastic snood just for fun, would I? Mind you, we did keep them for later use.

On a different theme, Carl & Livvy are supposed to be off to K****t today, so let's hope they got through 'security' ok.

Radio Radio

2006-08-12T21:30:00.000+03:00

Back from Essex now. That should be the last bit of travelling that I'll be doing at least. Kim will be off to Derby tomorrow to give a bit of support to Nicky who will be having her baby on Monday. We saw Kim's dad and stepmum and visited her grandmother in the home she now lives in. Visiting her dad was ok apart from the bit where James leapt forwards off his chair and slammed his lip against the lip of the table. Later on the cat scratched him so it wasn't a great visit from his point of view and made it a bit stressful for the rest of us.

It was hard for Kim to visit her grandmother. It was the first time she had seen her since her grandfather's funeral and since then her grandmother has gone into a home. As my parents had a home when we were in Cornwall I knew what they were like. Kim's only knowledge of them is the various scare stories that have been in the media over the years and what her dad had told her. As it turned out, her gran seems to be in quite a nice place but I think the emotion of the meeting overcame Kim and it got a bit tearful for a while. Unfortunately, Kim's gran's memory has gone to pieces so she doesn't really know that she's in a home or why she's there. In some ways that's good because she doesn't miss the things she had before as she's forgotten about them. Onthe other hand, it's natural for people, imagining themselves in the same position to assume that they would be sad, so they think that she is sad as well. She isn't though.

Anyway, as I seem to be tying myself in knots here, I shall change the subject. On the radio as we travelled back from Essex we heard Mark Lamarr talking to Dale Winton. Lamarr was asking Winton about his past as a DJ in a biscuit factory and the conversation went as follows.

Winton:...there were two workers for every speaker (in the factory).
Lamarr: Two workers per speaker! Wow, that's like 1984!
Winton: Oh no, it was over long before then.

We found that really funny, especially as Lamarr cracked up on air and told Winton that he was talking about the book '1984', especially as Winton seemed not to have heard of it. It kept us chortling for a couple of miles at least.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

2006-08-08T23:14:00.000+03:00

Well, we can't get any photos off Kim's phone because we don't have the cd to install the phone on my parents' computer. Perhaps we'll get one with her new phone. Otherwise you'll just have to wait until we get to K****t. Oops! We're not going there anymore are we? I mean, Saudi.

For those who may be interested, she'll be getting a Sony Ericsson K800. If you like phone porn, here's a picture of it. I, of course, am completely jealous of it. I'd already seen it advertised before I knew that Kim was getting it and I'd quite liked the look of it. There's no way I can get it now though. After all, we can't have 'his'n'hers' phones, can we. I shall just have to make do with having Kim's old phone which is still much better than my old tat. We've told ourselves that we won't need a digital camera as we'll have these two phones. It's one less thing to carry around. Kim's is also 3.2 megapixel!

Technology news now, and I have created, with the aid of a website, a button which should link to this blog. Here's a picture of it.

After visiting, Sandy's site, which you will notice has been linked to in a new box to your right, she asked if I could send her a button. So, I made this one and all I need to do now is work out a way of sending her the button and the means to make it into a link.

Back For Good (or not)

2006-08-08T13:08:00.000+03:00

We returned from Kernow last night, after a long drive made that bit more pleasurable by 45 minutes of screaming from the younger tot. It seems he gets fed up of sitting in his chair and has none of the stoical, stiff upper lip qualities expected of his family. I suppose he's not a true Englishman anyway.

Visiting Grandma (and the mother country) was very relaxing. We just pootled about for the 5 or 6 days we were there, popping over to see Carol, wandering about Mevagissey and the like. Not too stressful. Grandma wasn't doing too well but the doctor popped over and told her to stop taking certain pills with immediate effect. That made her feel a little bit more 'with it' and a lot more nervous (it seemed) at the thought of another blood test and possible hospital visits. Mind you, for 79 she could be doing a lot worse.

Big Jim is turning into a bit of a nut, as far as his suntan goes. Hannah is still pasty and pale. Perhaps I should start referring to her as an English rose as that sounds a bit better. We're off to visit another grandma tomorrow but I shall try to add a photo or two before then.