:-) Recovery
It's amazing how quickly people adapt to a change in environment or circumstances. When I injured my leg back in the Spring it was only a few hours before the limping gait I had to use to move around started to feel natural, like my "normal walk". In fact, the rather Long-John-Silver-like way in which I had to climb stairs during that time persisted, even after I regained full use of my calf muscles. Similarly the cold I've had for the last few days has brought shivers, aches and congestion, resulting in a weakened state that after a while felt like the "normal" me.
How great it feels then, when the cold symptoms start to disappear, your old strength returns, and you experience what seems to be abundant energy and strength because of the contrast between what you are now able to do and the "normality" of being ill.
I feel better today!
:-( Bloody Riyadh shopping again!
Ramadan's over now, so shopping should be back to normal, right? Right, except in Riyadh there's no such thing as normal.
I went out this morning to buy Karen's birthday present (I can't tell you what, or which shop I planned to visit because it would give the game away). I left deliberately just after 10am, knowing that very few shops here ever bother opening before then, and also mindful that they would be closing at around 11.45 for prayer time, then staying closed until around 4-4.30 pm. I drove about 5 miles into the city, queued up to get into the underground car park, spent 20 minutes searching for a parking space, only to find that the shop I wanted was closed anyway! Aaaarrgghh!!!!
Now I'm going to have to either find a different outlet or go out present-shopping at 10 o'clock at night.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Cuppa / Bad Timing
:-) Rosie Lea
When I'm feeling under the weather nothing perks me up like a nice hot cup of tea. My cold is starting to get better but I'm still ill and thus thoroughly deserving of all the sympathy I can get. When you're feeling off colour your outlook on life changes. Factors affecting your immediate personal environment become more important (am I warm enough? Too hot? How do I catch up on the sleep I missed last night and still get my work done?), so in this context the humble cup of tea takes on a whole new significance and becomes something I rely on to get me out of bed in the morning -- literally. I can feel the hot liquid lubricating, soothing and invigorating my insides with each swallow: it gives me the energy to face the day.
I wish I had a bigger mug!
:-( Clocks go back... or do they?
You will all know that everyone put their clocks back by an hour last Saturday night/Sunday morning, to return to normal after six months of daylight savings time. Well, not everyone! Saudi Arabia (and most other countries in this region) do not oberve daylight savings, so the clocks never change here, forward or back. This means that Saudi is always GMT+3, hence three hours ahead of UK in winter and two hours ahead of UK in summer.
This causes havoc with scheduling meetings and conference calls, because the computerised system we use tries to "correct" appointments to account for the change from daylight savings, with the result that everyone except me now has our regular weekly meetings shown in their calendars as an hour earlier than they should be. Now I've got to spend an hour tomorrow re-scheduling all our team calls to the correct times.
When I'm feeling under the weather nothing perks me up like a nice hot cup of tea. My cold is starting to get better but I'm still ill and thus thoroughly deserving of all the sympathy I can get. When you're feeling off colour your outlook on life changes. Factors affecting your immediate personal environment become more important (am I warm enough? Too hot? How do I catch up on the sleep I missed last night and still get my work done?), so in this context the humble cup of tea takes on a whole new significance and becomes something I rely on to get me out of bed in the morning -- literally. I can feel the hot liquid lubricating, soothing and invigorating my insides with each swallow: it gives me the energy to face the day.
I wish I had a bigger mug!
:-( Clocks go back... or do they?
You will all know that everyone put their clocks back by an hour last Saturday night/Sunday morning, to return to normal after six months of daylight savings time. Well, not everyone! Saudi Arabia (and most other countries in this region) do not oberve daylight savings, so the clocks never change here, forward or back. This means that Saudi is always GMT+3, hence three hours ahead of UK in winter and two hours ahead of UK in summer.
This causes havoc with scheduling meetings and conference calls, because the computerised system we use tries to "correct" appointments to account for the change from daylight savings, with the result that everyone except me now has our regular weekly meetings shown in their calendars as an hour earlier than they should be. Now I've got to spend an hour tomorrow re-scheduling all our team calls to the correct times.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
A Book at (Sick)bed-time
:-) Eats, Shoots & Leaves
This little book about punctuation has been around for a few years, but somehow I'd never gotten around to buying it until this week, when I found it in the airport bookshop in Abu Dhabi.
The author, Lynne Truss, is a self-confessed "stickler" for punctuation, and she proceeds to give a potted history of each punctuation mark, along with rules for its proper usage. It's not as dull as I'm making it sound, particularly if you -- like me -- are a bit of a stickler yourself who cringes at the increasingly garish uses of the Greengrocer's Apostrophe (e.g. Apple's, Banana's & Pear's).
I fancy myself as a reasonable grammarian and punctuationist (is there such a word?), but I learned a lot of new things from this book, as well as receiving a welcome refresher course from what I learned at school, back in the days when kids were taught grammar and punctuation.
I have great respect for anyone who can take such a dry subject and make an entertaining little read out of it. If you haven't got this book and you care about punctuation, you know what to do...
:-( Still Ill
Cough, wheeze, sniff, sneeze.
You're lucky I can manage even these few words!
This little book about punctuation has been around for a few years, but somehow I'd never gotten around to buying it until this week, when I found it in the airport bookshop in Abu Dhabi.
The author, Lynne Truss, is a self-confessed "stickler" for punctuation, and she proceeds to give a potted history of each punctuation mark, along with rules for its proper usage. It's not as dull as I'm making it sound, particularly if you -- like me -- are a bit of a stickler yourself who cringes at the increasingly garish uses of the Greengrocer's Apostrophe (e.g. Apple's, Banana's & Pear's).
I fancy myself as a reasonable grammarian and punctuationist (is there such a word?), but I learned a lot of new things from this book, as well as receiving a welcome refresher course from what I learned at school, back in the days when kids were taught grammar and punctuation.
I have great respect for anyone who can take such a dry subject and make an entertaining little read out of it. If you haven't got this book and you care about punctuation, you know what to do...
:-( Still Ill
Cough, wheeze, sniff, sneeze.
You're lucky I can manage even these few words!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Techno-bargain / Sniffles
:-) ATC-D650
I owe my new cheap Taiwanese DVD player an apology. All of the so-called teething troubles I described earlier turned out to have been user (me) error. I think I must be getting old; I never used to make user errors. Anyway my slim, white "I-play-anything" DVD player is going from strength to strength. I can play discs of any region encoding, it's much faster and more responsive than my old one, I can toggle DVD subtitles on and off without interrupting playback, and I can display a slideshow of my photos on the TV just by sliding my SD memory card into the slot on the front. I've even got Dolby Digital 5:1 sound working.
I love it when a plan comes together! ...who can tell me where that saying comes from? (hint: it's from a '70s TV show).
:-( I'm dying!
I brought some kind of "lurgy" back with me from Abu Dhabi. It's either a cold or a fever, not sure which, because I can't remember which way the rhyme goes. Is it, "Starve a fever, feed a cold.", or, "Feed a fever, starve a cold."? Whichever way around it is, I've got the one you feed. I never seem to get the one you're supposed to starve...
Feeling down in the dumps. Got sniffles, sneezing, coughing, shivers. I think a medicinal whisky and an early night are on the cards.
I owe my new cheap Taiwanese DVD player an apology. All of the so-called teething troubles I described earlier turned out to have been user (me) error. I think I must be getting old; I never used to make user errors. Anyway my slim, white "I-play-anything" DVD player is going from strength to strength. I can play discs of any region encoding, it's much faster and more responsive than my old one, I can toggle DVD subtitles on and off without interrupting playback, and I can display a slideshow of my photos on the TV just by sliding my SD memory card into the slot on the front. I've even got Dolby Digital 5:1 sound working.
I love it when a plan comes together! ...who can tell me where that saying comes from? (hint: it's from a '70s TV show).
:-( I'm dying!
I brought some kind of "lurgy" back with me from Abu Dhabi. It's either a cold or a fever, not sure which, because I can't remember which way the rhyme goes. Is it, "Starve a fever, feed a cold.", or, "Feed a fever, starve a cold."? Whichever way around it is, I've got the one you feed. I never seem to get the one you're supposed to starve...
Feeling down in the dumps. Got sniffles, sneezing, coughing, shivers. I think a medicinal whisky and an early night are on the cards.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Gulf Air
:-) Gulf Air Lounge, Abu Dhabi International Airport
Just got back from a three-day Eid trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. On the way home, had occasion to spend a goodly amount of time (see below) in the Business Class lounge at the airport. The Gulf Air Lounge is quite small but very well formed, with comfortable leather sofas spread about in informal clumps, a full bar (Yay!), hot and cold food on tap, its very own Duty Free Shop, a Business Centre with free (and fast) internet access, and - to top it all off - waiter service. We spent a very enjoyable afternoon ligging here: reading, surfing, sleeping, eating, drinking.
:-( Flight delays
The journeys to and from Abu Dhabi were both fraught with delays and missed connections. I have a stress scale for air travel that goes like this:-
Alone on business - Low
With family, direct flight and no hitches - Medium
With family, first flight delayed and risk of missing connection - Very High
In over eight years of frequent air travel, both business and leisure, I have become used to things going smoothly and to schedule. I regularly read/hear of people who suffer massive inconvenience due to delays caused by industrial action or increased security measures, and feel fortunate never to have been majorly affected by them.
This erstwhile smooth sailing (well, flying) has left me with high expectations of airline efficiency, but that came toppling annoyingly down when my travels took me to and around the Middle East. Our journey to Abu Dhabi took five hours longer than it should have, and the journey back took twelve hours when it should have taken six.
I'm starting to really hate airlines.
Full story on Neal Of Arabia
Just got back from a three-day Eid trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. On the way home, had occasion to spend a goodly amount of time (see below) in the Business Class lounge at the airport. The Gulf Air Lounge is quite small but very well formed, with comfortable leather sofas spread about in informal clumps, a full bar (Yay!), hot and cold food on tap, its very own Duty Free Shop, a Business Centre with free (and fast) internet access, and - to top it all off - waiter service. We spent a very enjoyable afternoon ligging here: reading, surfing, sleeping, eating, drinking.
:-( Flight delays
The journeys to and from Abu Dhabi were both fraught with delays and missed connections. I have a stress scale for air travel that goes like this:-
Alone on business - Low
With family, direct flight and no hitches - Medium
With family, first flight delayed and risk of missing connection - Very High
In over eight years of frequent air travel, both business and leisure, I have become used to things going smoothly and to schedule. I regularly read/hear of people who suffer massive inconvenience due to delays caused by industrial action or increased security measures, and feel fortunate never to have been majorly affected by them.
This erstwhile smooth sailing (well, flying) has left me with high expectations of airline efficiency, but that came toppling annoyingly down when my travels took me to and around the Middle East. Our journey to Abu Dhabi took five hours longer than it should have, and the journey back took twelve hours when it should have taken six.
I'm starting to really hate airlines.
Full story on Neal Of Arabia
Monday, October 23, 2006
Eid Mubarak! / My Poor Feet!
:-) Holiday
Ramadan comes to an end and today we are now in the festival of Eid al-Fitr. Eid is the Islamic equivalent of Christmas in the Christian world, in that it is the most important festival in the religious calendar, so, "Eid Mubarak!" to a Muslim is like saying, "Merry Christmas" to a Christian. (the two festivals are completely different so it's not the best analogy, but you get my drift I'm sure).
The Embassy is closed for three days so we're taking the opportunity to go on a short break to a new Middle East destination: Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
I will try to post here while I'm away but can't promise. In any case you can expect normal service to resume on Friday, when I'll tell you about the Abu Dhabi trip and post some pictures on Neal Of Arabia.
:-( New Shoe Blues
Bought a pair of Converse All-Stars shoes the other day - in a pathetic attempt to appear hip and with-it. They felt great when I tried them on in the shop, but since then have been rubbing my heels raw. Oh well, back to Hush Puppies...
Ramadan comes to an end and today we are now in the festival of Eid al-Fitr. Eid is the Islamic equivalent of Christmas in the Christian world, in that it is the most important festival in the religious calendar, so, "Eid Mubarak!" to a Muslim is like saying, "Merry Christmas" to a Christian. (the two festivals are completely different so it's not the best analogy, but you get my drift I'm sure).
The Embassy is closed for three days so we're taking the opportunity to go on a short break to a new Middle East destination: Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
I will try to post here while I'm away but can't promise. In any case you can expect normal service to resume on Friday, when I'll tell you about the Abu Dhabi trip and post some pictures on Neal Of Arabia.
:-( New Shoe Blues
Bought a pair of Converse All-Stars shoes the other day - in a pathetic attempt to appear hip and with-it. They felt great when I tried them on in the shop, but since then have been rubbing my heels raw. Oh well, back to Hush Puppies...
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Dad 'n' Lad
:-) Quality Time with Elliot
Spent a nice hour with Elliot this afternoon. I needed a good photo of me rollerblading (I'll tell you why one day), so Elliot came out to the street with me: me with my skating gear and he with my digital SLR camera. I've been teaching him some of the rudiments of photography: aperture, shutter speed, depth of field and what affects it, focal length etc. for a while now, and he practised by taking photos of me as I skated up and down. He has one of my hand-me-down digital cameras to use as his own, but he'll jump at any opportunity to get his hands on my Nikon. He has a real eye for photography and it wouldn't surprise me if he does it professionally one day.
Here are a couple from this afternoon...
Spent a nice hour with Elliot this afternoon. I needed a good photo of me rollerblading (I'll tell you why one day), so Elliot came out to the street with me: me with my skating gear and he with my digital SLR camera. I've been teaching him some of the rudiments of photography: aperture, shutter speed, depth of field and what affects it, focal length etc. for a while now, and he practised by taking photos of me as I skated up and down. He has one of my hand-me-down digital cameras to use as his own, but he'll jump at any opportunity to get his hands on my Nikon. He has a real eye for photography and it wouldn't surprise me if he does it professionally one day.
Here are a couple from this afternoon...
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