Dubai Trek: Part 2

Well actually this is the real Part 1, since yesterday's was just a trailer, so to speak.

I love my Toyota Land Cruiser Prado even more today than I did this time last week. For five days last week it was our principal hang-out, and performed admirably through a variety of challenging environments while at the same time keeping the family in safety and comfort.

We'd been invited to a desert trek in Dubai by friends Gerard and Rachael, to include a night camping out in the desert, so it was for this reason that we drove to Dubai -- a place that ordinarily we'd fly to as it is 1100km away from Riyadh. This long drive was on my mind early last Monday morning, as I loaded up the car with all our camping gear, a suitcase of clothes for five days, some food for the journey and a selection of electronic gadgets to keep the "are we there yet?"'s to a minimum. Karen couldn't get time off for the whole trip so the children and I did the drive down, with Karen to follow by air on Wednesday evening.
Once I'd got the children in the back seat my last prepatory ritual before setting off was to smear the entire front of the car with Fairy Liquid; a common precautionary measure in these parts against the erosive effects of sandstorms on the bodywork, which I first encountered on our first ever trip to Bahrain back in April.

Click to enlarge. Our route is highlighted in yellow.

We set off at 8am on Monday morning, allowing my SatNav system to decide the route, having been instructed to find the quickest way there. The first leg took us out of Riyadh to the North East on the Dammam Highway, then turned off after about an hour to the road for Al Hufuf. I should point out that the scenery for the entire Saudi part of the journey was pretty much the same: desert. Long, straight roads cutting a swathe through the sandy wilderness stretch out to the horizon in the bright sunlight. It's a pretty boring vista when you're trying to stay alert, but the lack of traffic and uncluttered roadsides made for relatively stress-free driving, so the two cancelled each other out pretty much. There were occasional road signs and petrol stations, and lots of camels, but that was about all there was to see apart from sky above, and sand to left and right. Oh yes, and pylons. Lot of pylons. The main nagging concern throughout is, "what if I break down out here in the middle of nowhere? No mobile phone signal and 200km away from the nearest town." So as I cruise along I'm keeping an eagle eye on the road surface for any debris that might puncture a tyre, and listening out for any unusual noises coming from the engine.

We arrived in Al Hofuf after about three hours, and stopped for petrol and a toilet break. The petrol station's toilets are best left undescribed! Al Hofuf is a pretty large town; large enough to be taken seriously, but small enough to retain a more provincial character. Onward again, this time towards Salwa, which we skirted rather than entered, then Southeast along the Qatar border and the Gulf Coast before reaching the U.A.E. border another three hours later. We were averaging 100km per hour including stops, border crossing etc., so it was easy to monitor progress: six hours = six hundred kilometres, so well over half way.

Once into the U.A.E. things brightened up considerably. The roads were in better condition and were better tended and decorated, we were driving along the coast road so had sand only to our right, and now ocean to our left. Even the petrol stations looked more inviting. The allure was short-lived however, when I found that petrol costs twice as much here as in Saudi, this time costing me a full £15 to fill my tank -- criminal! We had also put our watches forward an hour by this time, as there is a timezone change at the border.

Another three hours and we skirt around Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E. capital, before driving the last 150km leg to Dubai. Coming into Dubai along the massive Sheik Zayed Road we hit our first and only traffic jam of the trip. Sheik Zayed Road is either a quick expressway through the centre of Dubai or the World's biggest car park, depending on how close to rush hour you are.

The Sheik Zayed Rd. "Car Park"

Still, crawling along in first gear at least gives you the chance to check on the Burj Dubai's progress.

The Burj Dubai, currently at just over half its final height, already dominating Dubai's skyline. When completed it will be the World's tallest building, by a long way.

By the time we arrived on Monday it was dark, so these were actually taken later in the week.

We finally arrive at Gerard's house (he's putting us up) at 7.30pm, ten and a half hours after setting off. Another family -- Dave (another Novell-er), his wife Roz and their two young daughters are also staying at the house, and we all unwind with a couple of cold beers and by watching Pink Floyd's Pulse -- truly a legendary concert that we decided to put on in preparation for going to see Roger Waters play live on Wednesday night!!!

Tuesday is our lazy, creature comforts day, because things are going to get rougher and sandier from then on. I take the children to the Mall of the Emirates where we mooch around the shops in this truly massive mall, amble past the ski slope (with real snow), and then we go to the cinema to see The Pursuit of Happyness, with Will Smith. A bit overlong but a very moving and inspirational true story that made me shed a tear at the end. We finished the evening off with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe (the children's favourite) before heading back to Gerard's and falling into bed.

The Hard Rock Cafe

Dubai Trek: Part 1

Just got back from a great trip to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Five days of driving, shopping, driving, movies, driving, rock concert, driving, camping, driving and driving. There was quite a lot of driving, not all of which involved a road surface.

We did so much -- driving the 1100km each way, "wadi bashing" (4x4 driving in a rocky, dried up river bed), seeing Roger Waters live in concert, and camping in the desert -- that I'm going to split the story into smaller pieces to make it easier to read (and write!).

A memorable week of mixed emotions from euphoria to abject terror, so I want to do it justice and include lots of pictures. I originally wanted to kick it off today but I'm too tired after yesterday's ten-hour drive, so you'll have to make do with this little introduction for now.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the journey down, and our cushy day in Dubai on the Tuesday.

Off for an early night now... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Intermission

I'm going away on a trip for few days, so won't be posting anything until Saturday probably. When I get back there'll be plenty to tell I'm sure, but in the meantime why not catch up on older posts you may have missed (see the Blog Archive section at the side of the page), or get to know my other blog Bloody Marvellous.

Of course you could just ignore me completely and get on with your life...

Wedding #2

We're getting used to it now...

Remember last December when Karen performed her first marriage ceremony? Well last week we had a second wedding ceremony in the house. This time the happy couple were Eddie and Melanie.

Eddie & Melanie

Eddie is an engineer for a shipbuilder (who'd have thought you'd get a job doing that in the middle of the desert?) and Melanie is a nurse.

Karen with the happy couple

They were joined by a few close friends for the brief ceremony, which made their marriage official in UK law (they had already gotten married in the Philippines).

The Wedding Party

Karen's getting good at marrying people and I'm starting to settle in to my role as unofficial wedding photographer!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't know if the Saudis have arranged marriages like in some Asian countries, but I do know that everything -- and I mean everything -- to do with courtship, engagement and marriage happens behind the closed doors of the family home, and at no time are any public displays of affection or romance tolerated.
That's why the Muttawa (Religious Police) see to it that any Valentine's cards are removed from store shelves, and why I couldn't buy Karen one this year. (Abigail got one from her boyfriend though. He said he'd got it from a department store in town -- must be lying!)

I saw this cartoon on the website of The Arab News today. Not sure what they're trying to say with it but it seems unnecessarily hostile to me.

Click image to enlarge

The Car Park Of Doom

Almost every time I leave the Diplomatic Quarter to venture into the city I wonder if I'll make it back in one piece. In personal exchanges I have found the locals -- Saudis and Expats alike -- to be polite and conservative, just as the "Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Saudi Arabia" says, but... and it's a big BUT... put them either in a queue or behind the wheel of a car and all bets are off.

I've covered the insane driving here several times before, so let's not get into that again now. Assuming you have reached your destination still alive and with no more dents and scratches on your vehicle that you set out with, it's time to turn your mind to the other main aspect of motoring that takes nerves like Indiana Jones'. Parking.

In much the same way that old Indie took his life in his hands every time he walked out the front door, how you fare on a drive into Riyadh depends almost totally on your own reserves of patience, bravado, arrogance and sheer nerve.

In case you hadn't heard I'm a bit of a gadget freak, so my favourite shopping mall in Riyadh is Al Akaria because it has lots of Hi-Fi, electronics, and camera shops all together. The problem with that is that Al Akaria Mall is also home to Riyadh's worst parking experience. The mall is a scruffy, dirty, old shopping centre in the middle of the city and housed in a large drab building with several floors of offices above the ground-floor shopping level. Put all the office workers and shoppers together in an old building, in a city with no public transport, and you've got parking hell. I decided to drop by there this morning on the way back from renewing my car insurance (see Bills), to enquire if the tripod case I had ordered had come in yet. I did my usual two circuits of the outside of the building looking in vain for a parking space on the street, and as usual every inch of the building's perimeter was occupied by a parked car, with another line of parked cars outside them, blocking them in. I circled anyway in vain hope; you really don't want to descend into the murky netherworld of the underground car park unless you have first exhausted all other possibilities.

After two circuits I realised it's no good, time to bite the bullet.

I gritted my teeth and turned right into the car park entrance (actually there are two entrances but the other one is for Families Only). Two young, undernourished, bored-looking security guards in maroon uniforms looked blankly at me as I rolled past them and began down the ramp to the waiting blackness. I slowed down towards the bottom of the ramp, partly to take my sunglasses off and switch my headlights on, and partly to take heed of the scratch marks on the concrete lintel just an inch above the roof of the car. This was a no-no apparently, as the Saudi in the car behind explained with his horn. I ignored him and began to cruise around the first level, looking forlornly for a space. The dark, dirty, low-ceilinged parking area was totally packed with cars, and the later arrivals, on seeing all the marked spaces already taken, seemed to have made their own by parking on corners or against the opposite wall. All this made an already narrow lane even narrower, and as I snaked cautiously around the car park I received a second, longer burst on the horn from the car behind. Giving up on Level 1 I turned onto the down-ramp to Level 2, and saw in my wing mirror not just one but three cars behind following me. I got two more honks for driving down the dark ramp too slowly, then a third, possibly for loitering below 50km/h as I scanned row upon row of parked cars. At the end of the next row I spotted a space! Well, not a real space but an "extra" space in the driving lane and against a kerb. However it was on a bend and by the time I'd spotted it I'd gone too far forward to turn into it in one movement, which was all I felt my "fan club" would allow me, so I drove past it. Once onto the straight of the next lane the Saudis behind me decided they'd had enough of this namby-pamby Western Diplomatic (they could tell by the green number plates) driver and each one overtook me with a rev of the engine and a screech, lights off, sunglasses on, and giving me the Saudi equivalent of The Finger as each drew level. Relieved to have them in front of me at last I resumed my search. I went down a long lane only to find that someone had parked at the end, in the middle of the turn, completely blocking my path. There was nothing for it but to put the car in reverse and back slowly all the way to the previous junction and hope that nothing came up behind me. Having survived that manouevre I set off again, only to find myself at another dead end a few minutes later. This time it was a down-ramp to another part of the car park, but one that was apparently not being used, as there were closed barriers blocking the top of the ramp, on both sides. Another car was already parked nose against the barrier of the up-ramp so, having had enough by now, I pushed the nose of the Prado up against the other barrier at the top of the down ramp it was blocking me from using, switched off the engine and set off to find the lift to the shopping level.

I returned to Level 2 about fifteen minutes later (empty-handed: the case had not come in yet) to find the barrier in the up position and an irate-looking Saudi in a Land Cruiser waiting at the top of the ramp to come up, his car and mine nose-to-nose about six inches apart. I didn't make eye contact but got into the car as quickly as I could, wound down the window and started reversing all the way back down the lane to a junction where I could turn and drive forwards again. He followed me closely all the way, lights on full, as if he were trying to push me along faster with the beam. I finally reversed past the junction and he turned into it before me, and at the same time an undernourished but now less bored-looking security guard in a maroon uniform came up to my window shouting, "Mishkila Mishkila!" (meaning Problem). I put my sunglasses on and shouted back, "Mafi Arabie!" (don't speak Arabic), and sped off towards the welcoming daylight.

So next time you curse the inventor of Pay 'n' Display, think yourself lucky.

Bills

I wish bill payment were as easy here as in the UK. Direct Debits and on-line payment facilities are positioned on Saudi Arabia's technological radar roughly where hovercars and "Jaunt Belts" (who else remembers The Tomorrow People?) are on yours and mine.

I expect you pay your mobile phone bill by Direct Debit, you may have a standing order on your bank account for the annual home insurance premium, and for several other things you can rely on the Post Office's payment collection services -- luxury.

I suppose I'm not helping matters by continuing to use a UK bank account while I'm here. I have opened a Saudi account, but trying to transfer money to it from the UK is a financial quagmire of forms, charges, and restrictions. Far easier -- but alas I fear, more expensive in the long run -- is to simply withdraw cash from my UK account at an ATM, and then use that to pay my bills.

I received a letter about my car insurance the other day, which is now due for renewal as it is a year since I bought the Prado and took out the policy. Their offer of accepting payment by bank transfer or cheque is no use to me, as my Saudi account never has anything in it, so it's the good old fallback of hard cash once again. So now I have to phone the person who wrote to me from the insurance company, arrange a date and time for me to visit, obtain directions to their offices in Riyadh, then go at the appointed time with my cash and sit across the desk from a man who will take about thirty minutes to scrutinise my policy details, the letter, my money, my face, the weather outside, and his mobile phone (for texts from his mates), then finally send me on my way with new insurance documents for the second year, and at least two hand-written receipts each with three rubber stamps. I may spend all day tomorrow on this.

Likewise I travelled to the local Mobily office this morning to pay the childrens' mobile phone bills. I haven't seen either bill. Instead I am informed that the bill needs paying by Abigail telling me she can no longer send text messages. Luckily there is a Mobily office in the DQ, so just a couple of minutes by car. As I sat across the desk while the clerk, in full Arab dress, got on with his scrutinising, my eyes wandered around the showroom/office at all the advertising posters and leaflets (I had actually brought a book with me in anticipation of a long wait, but thought it rude to open it at this point). A couple of things interested me. First, the image of a smart-looking laptop on his desk calendar showing Mobily's website had clearly been doctored.


The laptop was an Apple Macintosh Powerbook -- chosen no doubt because of its elegant silvery looks, yet the screen was a shot of Windows XP, Start button 'n' all. A good example of an Ad Dept.'s desire to show the most attractive image they can; a sleek laptop showing a familiar screenshot, regardless of its technical innacuracy and misrepresentation. The other thing that made me smile was this flyer:


Since images of women (and often children too) are banned here, leaflets like this that would otherwise help to sell their wares by radiating female beauty are instead covered with hairy blokes chatting with each other on the phone.

The clerk's eagle-eyed attention to customer service was a credit to him. He'd noticed me turning the desk calendar over in my hands, and as he gave me my six receipts he also produced another desk calendar for me to take home, and as an added bonus threw in a Mobily wall planner. Of course by now -- wall planner, desk calendar, six receipts, the flyer, my book -- I needed a Mobily carrier bag to lug it all home in. Not only do they make you travel to them so that you can pay them, they send you out a walking ad campaign!

Bahrain Weekend

Ah, that's better! Fresh from a weekend getaway in the nearby Kingdom of Bahrain our batteries are recharged, and we're ready to take on whatever Riyadh has to throw at us.

Life here is very nice: there's a great social life, nice shops, and although we face an ever-present threat from terrorism the threat that I feel most regularly is from mad motorists. As I've said before, overall we feel safer living here than we did in the UK.

Having said that, life for an expat in Saudi does have its difficulties and restrictions (I've written about many of these before: shop opening times, lack of entertainment, restrictions on women's rights and appearance etc.), and every few weeks we feel the need to get away to -- from our perspective -- relative normality. Bahrain is the perfect oasis for such a retreat, being the closest country to Riyadh at a mere four hours' drive away, and managing to remain an Islamic state without the harsh restrictions of Saudi Arabia. A couple of days spent moving freely, not wearing an abaya (that's Karen, not me) shopping all day, drinking alcohol in public (but only in hotels and certain restaurants), and even eating pork are just as refreshing and renewing for us as a weekend at a health spa.

Oh the cinema! I've always loved going to the movies, and now that I only get to do that a few times per year each visit is precious. We saw Night At The Museum, with Ben Stiller. A pretty silly, formulaic romp but very funny and entertaining nonetheless. Weird casting though: Ricky Gervais as the Director of the Museum of Natural History in New York, and Steve Coogan as a miniature Roman Centurion? I think this is Ricky and Steve calling in a few favours to get a leg up the Hollywood ladder. Still, I don't want to put you off, and it is jolly good fun.

Highlight of the weekend was brunch at the Ritz Carlton: a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. "All You Can Eat" makes it sound very Berni Inn, but that's the deal. The food is excellent and freshly cooked. There are friendly and eager chefs dotted around to prepare your omelette/fresh pasta/deep-fried shrimp/crepe whenever you fancy, there was a sushi mountain and a chocolate fountain, and a bottomless well of sparkling wine -- it was wonderful.

Lowlight of the weekend came, predictably enough, as we reached the Saudi border on the causeway at the start of our homeward journey. We seemed to have arrived just after the problem started, as we were third in a queue of traffic that ended up about twenty cars long by the end of the two-hour wait. "System is down" was the only explanation we received, and the officials didn't seem to have -- or want to use -- any kind of manual backup for the computerised passport checking system that had just decided to crash. And we were in the VIP Fast Track lane for Diplomats; I shudder to think how long the queue in the regular check point was getting, although we could hear their horns blaring clearly enough from the other side of a block of buildings and a row of palm trees. Having finally got the PC going again (they'd probably just upgraded it to Windows Vista!) all we had to do was survive the four hours on the motorway through the desert in the dark while avoiding the young Saudis hurtling past us at 180Km/h on both sides.

Can't wait til next time!

"I Can See Clearly Now..."

You know it's time to get your eyes tested when you can no longer read "BREAKING NEWS" at the bottom of the screen on Sky News, even WITH your glasses on. (I'm so glad we're still able to get that leading, incisive, trail-blazing news organisation's broadcasts out here so we can stay up with current affairs. Where else can you see the Saddam execution video on continuous loop for 48 hours, or be among the first to know that Shilpa won Celebrity Big Brother?).

Neither Karen nor I had had our eyes re-tested for a couple of years and, as I've said countless times before, there ain't much to do here of a Thursday afternoon, so last week we decided to spend the day shopping and seeing if we need new glasses (as if we didn't already know!).

Granada Mall in Riyadh has several opticians: Pearle, Magrabi Optical to name but two (the only two whose names I can remember), and from the outside they certainly look the part: lots of designer names displayed, "40% Sale!", and so on. The big difference with shop windows here compared with, well, anywhere else, is that they are completely lacking any human imagery. In an Optician's window in Europe, for example, you would see photos of attractive models sporting their eyewear while engaged in sophisticated pursuits, like haring round a mountain road in an open-topped Ferrari, or lounging in bikinis, cocktail in hand, on the back of a luxury yacht in Monte Carlo. Or even just a close up of a pretty face wearing equally pretty glasses. In Saudi, however, such images are strictly forbidden. We even once saw a large billboard-sized ad on the side of a brand new Timberland store depicting a rugged outdoor-type male standing on top of a rock formation in the mountains and wearing the tough boots, thick sweater etc. that you can buy inside the store, but his face had been blacked out!
So, apart from the lack of nice photos showing us what we could look like if we buy our glasses here, the store looked pretty competent and professional.

"I wonder if you can get new glasses same-day like in the UK?" Karen pondered. I very much doubted it. Based on previous experiences here things take their own sweet time, and there's nothing you can do to speed it up or slow it down. I told her we'd go in with low expectations, fully anticipating a wait of two weeks for any glasses we may order. We went in and were immediately approached by the Filipino Optometrist who, on hearing that we both wanted eye tests, ushered us to a nearby machine in the middle of the shop floor. It was one of those things that you sit at and look into a couple of lenses -- a bit like a fixed pair of binoculars, and the guy measures the vital statistics of each of your eyes. I was a bit worried that this was "it", all the eye test we were going to get, but afterwards he took us in turn to a room at the back that put me immediately at ease, because it was just like every other eye exam room I've ever been in, with the letter chart on the wall and everything. He took my old glasses out to another machine, and returned only about a minute later to predict that my prescription has hardly changed at all: just 0.25 in one eye. I said that I didn't care. I want another eye test and some new glasses anyway (I was feeling a bit flush that day and always feel good when I'm buying myself something new).
So, both eye tests done, it was time to pick out frames. I was expecting new glasses to cost us about £250 each, which is a pretty average price in the UK (for designer frames), so I had a total budget of £500, or SR3,500 in mind. But, as we started to browse through the designers: Prada, Boss, Armani, D&G, Lacoste, Converse, we found that they were much cheaper than we were expecting (everything was 40% off after all). The Optometrist also gave us prices for the lenses, which were again much cheaper than we were expecting, so to cut a long story short we spent up to our budget by buying two pairs of regular glasses each, and a pair of prescription sunglasses each. Karen and I each ordered a pair of Steppers (which I took to be their house brand), mine are a weigh-nothing, twist-and-turn-and-they-spring-back Titanium pair, and our second pairs are Dolce & Gabbana (K), and Converse (me).
The next pleasant surprise was that, although the sunglasses would take a couple of weeks, our new glasses would be ready in just over an hour. We went off and had some lunch and browsed a couple more shops (including 30 minutes of voluntary imprisonment in Carrefour during prayer time), and sure enough there were four brand new pairs of glasses waiting for us when we returned to the store an hour and a half later.
Six pairs of glasses in an hour, and for the cost of two in the UK? This place continues to surprise, entertain, and madden me in equal measure.

Struggle for Saudi Arabia's Soul

There was an interesting programme about Saudi Arabia on Radio 4 recently, which you can listen to on-line by clicking here.

Here's the synopsis:
"Ed Stourton travels to Saudi Arabia, where the first stirrings of democratic change have begun. He finds a deeply conservative country badly shaken by 9/11 and where the war in Iraq is sending would-be democrats scurrying for cover."

Doubly interesting from our point of view, as it includes extracts from an interview with Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, whose views on the subject are distilled by his extensive experience and knowledge of the country and its people.

A New Challenge for the Boss

You may have read/heard in the news recently that the UK Government is sending around thirty additional diplomats to Afghanistan to help prevent the country from suffering the same level of chaos and violence as Iraq.

It has also been announced that our current Ambassador here, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, will be heading up this newly enlarged mission, so we will shortly be losing our Ambassador when he moves to Kabul.

Seeing people come and go is one of the things I've had to get used to as a Diplomatic Spouse. All UK-based Foreign Office staff have overseas postings lasting usually two or three years, so at any large post there will be a regular turnover of staff. We've now been here in Riyadh for one year, and in that time we have seen about ten members of staff leave at the end of their tour, to be replaced by new people coming to Saudi either from London or directly from their previous posting. It's sad in a way becuase you can be parted from good friends, but also nice because you can expand your circle of friends and keep in touch with them, with always the possibility that you may end up working together again in the future (not sure how often this happens in practice). Some good friends of ours left Riyadh to return to London last September, so when we went to the UK for Christmas we visited them and spent a very nice evening reminiscing over dinner about our time together in Saudi.

So it looks like Sherard and Bridget are next in line to move on. We don't yet know who our new Ambassador will be but it should be confirmed soon. I enjoyed getting to know Sherard and Bridget very much and will miss them -- as I'm sure will everyone at the Embassy -- when they leave in a few weeks' time. Rest assured we're planning to give them a good send-off.

AnotherBlokeOfArabia

A friend of mine (he's an Ambassador actually but I don't like to name-drop) pointed out the other day that I have some competition in the English-bloke-ranting-about-life-in-Riyadh stakes. I checked out his story (well you never know, do you?), and true enough, I found this other blog called An Englishman in Saudi Arabia. Head on over when you have time, because there are some quite funny stories about Saudi life. You'll hear more about the shopping, driving, women covering up, and the Muttawa (Religious Police). Margrave must be something of a Muttawa magnet: he's got several encounter stories already and has only been here a few months. Karen and I have only "been Muttawa'd" twice in our year here, and both incidents were minor (they just spit out the word, "Cover!" as they walk past, indicating that they would like Karen to cover her head during prayer time)... maybe we need to get out more.
It's a little bit mysterious; he doesn't give his name and as yet I haven't yet had a reply to the email I sent him a few days ago, but I'll keep trying to get in touch and will let you know how I get on. Perhaps he can take me out Muttawa-baiting at the weekend.

Birthdays

It's been a bit of a birthday blitz since Christmas. Starting with Abigail who turned 12 on Dec 28. We'd planned our UK trip to finish on that date so we could celebrate with family before flying back to Riyadh later that evening. Abigail's favourite birthday present was her new mobile phone.


At that same family get-together we gave Sian her present, since we wouldn't be there for her birthday on Jan 1.

Once back in Riyadh the next one was Alix's (Abigail's best friend) on Jan 6, and Abigail gave her some nice cosmetics kits and a teddy bear, all in a glitzy gift bag.

Next it was my turn (Jan 11): you don't want to know how old I am. I don't even want to know but I can't help it! I did really well present-wise: Karen bought me a new pair of Rollerblades


(they're scarily fast! I think she may be trying to bump me off and make it look like an accident), some aftershave and some other smellies/shaving stuff. I got some nice DVDs and a couple of books on photography too, and also bought myself a professional and quite expensive tripod; not the most exciting of articles, but if you're a photographer your tripod is your next best friend after your camera, and quality matters.


It's a Manfrotto 458b, and in the world of tripods if it's not the King then it's definitely a minor Royal. We also had a few friends round for a party, where we played some fun games (Cranium, Who's In The Bag? etc.) and Karen made a fab curry. A jolly good time was had by all and we didn't fall into bed til around 3am (that's just the two of us, not all!). I'm normally one of those "don't want a fuss" types when it comes to birthdays, but I'm slowly coming round to the idea of being made a fuss of!

The next day Alix and Abigail had a joint birthday party so they could celebrate belatedly with their schoolfriends. Four hours, five pizzas, untold cans of pop and lots of loud music later, they emerged with big grins on their faces and struggling to carry all their extra presents, so I think it was a success.

(Catastrophe! I just went to add a couple of photos from the party but they've disappeard from my laptop! I'll get copies from Abigail when I get back and post them here then.)

As I write I'm in my hotel room in Wokingham (yes, another UK trip, but this time just me and for three days on business), and I've just come from Laura's (Karen's sister) whose birthday it is today (Jan 14). Her big pressie was a portable sat-nav unit which I helped her to set up, and which made me very jealous, since it's newer and better than mine; it does everything but make the tea, and it might even do that (didn't have time to read the manual).


That's all for now, we birthday boys and girls are off to play with our toys.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is not traditionally one of my favourite annual events, mainly I think because I don't like being told when and how to enjoy myself, but this year (or should that be LAST year) I had a great time, as did everyone else at the Embassy.

A "Travelling Supper" was planned for the evening (more on this later), and to further fill the day for all the families who had teenage children over to visit during the holidays, Karen organized a quad-biking trip. She had also managed to be on Duty Officer watch that week (not sure whether by accident or design), which meant she had to stay near the Embassy in case of emergencies and therefore couldn't come with us, so she stayed home (and probably went back to bed for all I know).

We've been quad-biking several times before (as regular readers will know), but this was by far the largest group we had ever had, with about 35 people heading off from our house on New Year's Eve morning in a convoy of ten 4x4s.

The quad-biking dunes are around 50km Southwest of Riyadh, a journey which took our convoy about 40 minutes. Having arrived safely the next order of business was to negotiate a good price for our "bulk purchase" of 30 bums on seats, and Sherard did us proud here; dismissing the first group of Bedouin who had taken one look at our Diplomatic licence plates and had immediatly inflated their prices accordingly, wanting to charge us SR150 each (£20) for an hour, then moving further down the road to another group where he negotiated (in Arabic) a great rate of just SR50 (£7) each.

"Here come some ex-pat suckers."

Sherard with his negotiating hat on

We had the usual mix of experience in the group, with a couple of devil-may-care maniacs who shot off immediately, wondering how quickly they could hit a dune to lift them airborne, followed by the confident, experienced, but still sensible group (thankfully including my children).

"Whatever you do, don't press this button!"

I stayed behind to assist the first timers; some of whom just needed briefing on the controls and some who needed a little encouragement to mount up. As is usually the case, the nervous first-timers soon got to grips with the bikes and were then off whizzing all round the dunes.

...and they're off!

First-timers Gill and son Jack

Yours Truly with Alexander

Paul getting carried away

Abigail's an old hand now

Melanie had a laid-back approach to the whole thing

Sherard playing with the new camcorder he got from Santa

"Eat my dust!"

Megan (another first-timer) looking like a pro after just one session

The morning was a great success, and we returned to the DQ at around 2.30 in the afternoon, just in time to catch a power nap before getting ready for the evening's festivities.

A travelling supper is, well, a supper that you travel to. Each family taking part hosts a single course in their house, then the group walks to the next house for the next course, and so on. For us, this meant following a pre-determined route that Karen had worked out and that had to be followed with military precision if we were all to make it to the Ambassador's residence by quarter to midnight.
Thirty-eight of us (including all the visiting teenagers) had cocktails at 6 at Kevin & Louise's, then the starter (liver and fish pates) at Lynn & David's at 7. This was followed by an Indian main course at 8 at Ian & Carol's house and dessert at 9 at Karen & Adrian's (sponge pudding and custard!). Then at 10 it was off to Paul & Elke's for cheese and buscuits, then our house at 11 for coffee before moving to the Residence in time to see the new year in with some dancing.

Wonderful. Next New Year's Eve is going to have a tough act to follow.

Christmas in UK

Hello and Happy New Year to all. I don't know about you, but we had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and I've got lots of stuff to tell you about and lots of nice photos too.

As you know, we spent Christmas in the UK with family and friends there, before returning to Riyadh on Dec 28 (Abigail's birthday) to spend New Year's Eve with Embassy friends. Although the modern and well-equipped bungalow that we rented for our UK stay did in fact have wireless broadband internet access, I resisted the urge to blog and instead took another brief blogging break to focus on relaxing and feeling festive; both of which I did very well!

My favourite Christmas present (from Karen) was my new flash unit. Flash photos are not usually very satisfying, as camera-mounted direct flash lighting tends to be very harsh, and you get the familiar problems of bleached out faces and red eyes. Not so with my new flash, which is superb and perfectly matched to my camera: read all about it here.

Here are some photos taken on Christmas Day (at my Mother-in-Law's), Boxing Day (at my cousin's), and on Abigail's birthday (at my Sister-in-Law's). They show what a good time we had, and also show off what my new flash unit can do!

Mum & Dad out for the count after their Christmas Turkey.

My niece Isabelle, with two new-found friends

"What should I do Mum: Deal or No Deal??"

Elliot & Abigail with Isabelle & Lucas (he doesn't always wear funny hats; it's a Peter Pan costume).

See? Told you.

Me & Abigail

Karen

"Abigail -- don't look now but you're being watched!"

Laura & Karen

Get ready for the bang!

Typical Lucas: no trousers and a dagger in hand!

Isabelle on her first driving lesson.

My two.

Meet Luca, my cousin Ruth's little boy. Does that make him my second cousin or my great nephew or what? He's fourteen months old and this was the first time we had met him. He's so cute!

Lucas in his Sportacus costume (he likes to dress up)

...and here's the real Sportacus: the resemblance is uncanny isn't it?

Karen & Luca hit it off.

My cousin Tamar's son, Josh.

Isabelle with her Mum, Sian.

And finally, my favourite picture from the trip: Abigail & Isabelle together.

Christmas Break

Im at Bahrain Airport with the family, on our way back to the UK for Christmas. We can't wait to see family and friends again. I was last in the UK in September but Karen and the children haven't been there since July, so we're all looking forward to going back.

We'll be staying in rented accommodation and I don't know if there will be an internet connection there, so I may not blog again until we get back to Riyadh on Dec 29.

We have a very merry Christmas planned, and I hope you have one too.

Not the Riyadh Choral Society

Public gatherings for the purpose of music-making are banned here, so it is not allowed for a group of ex-pats who like to sing to get together and form a choral society.

Had such things been allowed, then I would have recently joined the Riyadh Choral Society and attended weekly rehearsals. Then we would have put on three performances of a Seasonal Concert at a secret location, which would have had a small orchestra accompanying the choir and would have included excerpts from Handel's Messiah, plus a variety of secular and church Christmas pieces, and a Carol requests slot.

These concerts would have been very popular, and attended by around 200 people each day. Those attending would have enjoyed an excellent selection of Christmas music, mince pies and mulled grape juice at half-time, and a good old carol singalong.

Shame we're not allowed... ;-)