Season two of West Wing to watch and more photographs to take for 26 Things 2. Here is one I took earlier which, try as I might, does not fit into any category listed!

The night temperature is dropping slightly and so the weather is lovely at the moment. The garden is still full of flowers and armies of creepy crawlies who are making night-time raids on the outer perimeter of the villa in an attempt to get into the warmth. Packs of wild dogs are getting closer to the compound looking for food and you can hear them yapping and howling late into the night.
Ramadan and Eid are now over so maybe things will get back to some semblance of normality!



Name this herb; we haven't had a competition for a long time.

Well the answer is yes! Phil, with the help of a tall Lebanese gentleman (my height apparently) and 10 phone calls to me, bought an evening dress. I now have a new black, long evening jobby by Pearce Fionda and it's gorgeous! All I need now are new shoes; the black Gucci numbers are in Cyprus. The occasion is a Christmas dinner in 2 weeks time I will take photographs then but here is an idea of what it looks like:

Right here we go, straight from the shoulder, I will be 55 in March. Now I have searched in vain for Bloggers over 50 and as a result of my searching ended up with a few obscene Emails from freaky old men who are into 'Dogging' and not 'Blogging'! (I know ...horrific or what?) and a guy in America who was very funny until he went into graphic detail about his prostate operation! So where do I go to from here? I asked my nearest and dearest for a face-lift when I reached fifty but have been told repeatedly that I don't need it! After last nights television programme on complete make-overs I'm not so sure.
This young woman had a tummy tuck, an eyebrow lift, ears pinned back, nose job, chin implant, teeth whitened, lazier eye surgery and the most enormous boob implants! I did the argh! ouch! 00h! stuff but have to say she looked terrific!
A long lost friend from Dahran was sick and tired of hearing about my face-lift and shortly after my fiftieth birthday organised a dinner party for me. I was thrilled that there were new people that had been invited and even more so when a young Syrian man was seated on my right. The evening began with a very subdued table of guests and I enquired politely what the gentleman on my right did for a living:
"Oh, I work at the hospital."
"That sounds interesting, what do you do?"
"I'm a surgeon."
"Terrific, what sort of surgeon?"
"Mmmm, you would call it 'plastic surgery'!!!!"
Booh-shuck-a-lah and if Pat Shawcross ever reads my page, thanx and you will be getting a postcard from a discrete clinic in Harley Street soon.

In the Arab News on Friday there was a very interesting and informative article which I feel should be brought immediately to your attention.
All women in Saudi Arabia are being asked to moderate certain behaviour as it is causing the men to lose control. Yes, this is hard to believe when you consider that all women go out covered from head to toe in black abya's and veils; even western women wear abya's! So what is it that we are doing? Maybe a quick flash of leg or wrist, peek-a-boo through the eye slit, or a sway of the hips.
No, apparently we are jingling our jewellery in a provocative manner and... wait for it....
wafting ...PERFUME!
So girls now you know how it's done go forth and WAFT!

What a result although all of the Aussies here are gutted! Phil caught the flight to Riyadh with a huge grin on his face and my shopping list.
Just a reminder to get those puddings made, I think ours are quite cute!

Apart from the obvious routine things of washing, ironing, cooking and forty minute walk (tell you about this another time!), we have just watched 21 episodes of West Wing and we are hooked. This is a brilliant series and at the moment very compulsive. I know one thing though, I am going to be devastated if anything happens to Charlie and girls what about Rob Lowe; yummy or what?
Last weekend we watched Cold Feet from start to finish and I thought that was pretty good but this is in a different league, so much so that we have ordered the second series. I hope it comes by next weekend.
Update on 26 Things 2: two more photographs today!

This morning we went into town to buy a new hall carpet for our villa in Cyprus. The old carpet is just that. It is an old tribal rug but not of the best quality; believe me you can tell. So this is where we have been, an Al Addin's cave of beautiful rugs:



We have purchased a hand-woven Persian rug in dark blue/cream/terracotta and raspberry colours. The wool is very soft as it is taken from lambs (aaww) and not hairy sheep. The lambs are fine, it's nice and warm where they live and it grows back.
This shop also sells a lot of local glass. They are highly decorated pieces with oodles of gold bands and swirls. A bit gaudy for my taste but what do you think?



I am particularly chuffed with our outing because I have managed three more photographs for 26 Things 2!

Oh, I am getting SO excited! Four weeks today we will be home in Cyprus - Yippee!
Ten 'chums' will be at the Carol Concert at the Kamares Club and ten 'chums' will be at Annabelles for Christmas day lunch. We are going Christmas shopping in Nicosia and food shopping at Papantoniou's. And then, not long after in the New Year, I get to see Ed. MAGIC!

It's that time of year again when schools get out the tea-towels and shepherds costumes in readiness for seasonal activities.
I began with the older children way back in September but now the younger children have joined us and the fun has started!
My teaching experience has been mainly in Junior and Secondary education so any contact with children under seven is a new experience and a steep learning curve for me.
For example today I have learnt that young childrens' perfectionism is impressive and that they are masters at everything that is irrelevant. I so admire educators that are with these children all day. I stand amidst it all feeling as though I am in the sequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest!
Rehearsals require the role of wise mediator as the donkey accuses the cow of smelling, Gabriel declares that the hay is really "shredded-up paper" and Lauren is "desprut to wee"!
I knew it was foolish to respond to Dylan's waving arm. When asked if it was very urgent he assured me that it was, in tones that indicated it was a life and death situation.
"Do I have to be a nrater because I've been thinking all night that I want to be Kevin?"
Where on earth does KEVIN figure in all of this?

Christmas is just around the corner and we have a few parties to go to and I HAVEN'T A THING TO WEAR! I have told you all many times that nice clothes shops are thin on the ground up here; well actually they don't exist! You are probably all thinking why didn't she think ahead and get something in Cyprus last summer? I did try but soon discovered that the shops cater mainly for 19 year old Russian Pole Dancers; of which I am not! So as Phil is going to Riyadh next week he has the job of finding me a black, strappy, sophisticated evening dress.
Now most men would be phased by this but not Phil. A few years ago he had to fly back on business to London. On this occasion I wanted some of those plastic strappy bras. I was working when my mobile phone rang and it was Phil, who had met up with Ed, and they were in the underwear department in Selfridges. Now there was quite a bit of giggling going on so it was obvious that frequent stops in the wine bar had been made. They wanted to know what colours they should get and whether I wanted balcony, underwired or padded.
I reminded Ed of this tonight just before I began to write my Blog. I asked him if he had been embarrassed. I am still laughing at his reply:
"Embarrassed about buying bras? NO....only when Phil asked to try them on!"

We invited a few friends for a barbecue last night and then later we went to say goodbye to Ray who is, as I write this, now back home in Wales. It was a terrific evening and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Parts of the evening are a little blurred, not that I have forgotten any of my escapades, but a tad fuzzy round the edges. Why, on these occasions, do I think that I can dance? I distinctly remember complaining loudly, oh, I do get SO loud, that I needed a handbag to dance round and then proceeding to do the sort of leg movements that John Travolta did in Pulp Fiction. Then my behaviour became even more outrageous when I began throwing nuts at Tiny; yep so called because he's 6ft 4inches! He seemed to take it all in good part but I think I'd best apologise when I next see him.
The mystery of the evening is...



Why have we got 40 tickets for the prize draw? I haven't a clue!

Congratulations to Phil today, he now has his Masters degree!

I love my job but some days...
It seemed a good idea at the planning stage to make papier mache pencil pots this week in art. It's amazing the things that you can do with an empty toilet roll and old copies of the Arab News.
Today we reached the undercoat stage and then the final paint design. To dry the first coat we all trooped into the girls toilets (mutterings from the boys...) to wave them under the hand dryers to speed the process up. Then back to the classroom to mix their individual paint colours. They're a well-trained group by now but I still need eyes on swivels during a practical lesson.
Things were going full swing and with comments like, "Mrs Scates have you seen the state of my bottom?", we were having a hoot of a time. Well B.........(to protect the innocent) was laughing so much at this that he fell off his chair, pulling the plastic table covering with him and the contents of six beautifully mixed paint pots. Five covered him but it was the lime green that seemed to arc in slow motion across the classroom and land on K...'s table splattering her from head to toe in, what looked like, technicolour mucus.
As I was saying, just a normal day.

Well here we go, Western targets are being put on high alert, yet again!
It is very hard to live like this where you feel as though you are under constant threat from terrorist attack. All that we want to do is live and work in peace and harmony with the people of this country. We have a job to do and an honest living to make.
This time there is talk of chemical and biological attack! I'm afraid!

The weekend is here and it's been a quiet but not uninteresting old day.
We went shopping this morning for food and Ramadan goodies; 2 bunches of free carnations.
This afternoon we have watched a film that I selected called The Core. With lines like,
"So what is it constructed from?"
"Mmm, unobtitanium!"
...I confess that it did not capture my interest. It did lead me to pondering, yet again, to a hypothesis that I found fascinating when I was 15. So just indulge me for a moment. It's one of those 'what if's'!
What if it was possible to drill/dig right through the centre of the earth when would you have to turn so that when you came to Australia you wouldn't come through feet first? Or indeed would you come out feet first? How would you come out the right way if you began by digging down? I shall leave you with that thought.
Here is a reject photograph from 26 Things 2; it came out orange not red.

I began to realise how sedentary my life had become when last week I began to sing the tune from the Tele Tubbies and then actually sat and watched it! So, much inspired and refreshed from my weekend in Jordan, I persuaded Phil to come Ten-Pin bowling with me last night.
We have a modern, computerised, 4 lane bowling alley on this compound which is free and which we rarely take advantage of. The place was empty, apart from Caesar the manager, and we had a great time. It quickly became apparent that my skills were sadly lacking and it should be called One-Pin bowling as this was often all that I hit! Phil was skillfully chucking a 16lb ball and smashing those pins all over the place. My pretty pink 10 pounder spent more time in those gutters down the side, if they hadn't been there I might have hit some of those pins!
It was during the third game, when I complained that my fingers were hurting, that I was told I had got them in the wrong holes! DUH!

Whenever I mention about getting older, or my flabby arms and sagging bits, Miss L gets quite cross with me. However, we met someone in Aqaba who has inspired me to take stock and give myself a mental shake-up; a bit like pressing the refresh button on the computer. His name is Attullah Khabiritti and he is 80 plus years old.
We met in the restaurant on the beach and began to chat about Manchester, of all places. He told us that he belongs to the largest tribe in Jordan having over 1000 members and that he was the Member of Parliament for Aqaba for many years. This fascinating person invited us for a drink in his beach-side apartment. The walls are covered with photographs where he is shaking hands with some very important people, Margaret Thatcher: Winston Churchill, the King of Jordan and Omar Sheriff, just to name a few. He has invited us to his villa in Amman just before Christmas. There are some fascinating people on this planet!
These are taken from the balcony of his apartment:

After a record-breaking hour at both border crossings (once we were at the Saudi border for 3 hours!) we arrived at Aqaba. The architecture of the buildings is very Arabic but it is a world away from Saudi; women drive, don't necessarily cover-up and they have a more tolerant attitude towards alcohol. There is a very busy port to the south east of the town, the mountains frame the north, Israel and Egypt are to the west.



As our hotel room wasn't quite ready we headed for the terrace to have lunch and a little quaff of vino collapso.



Two hours later we decided that we ought to check the room out. We have stayed at the Movenpick many times but have never had the good fortune to get a room with a balcony. This time our luck was in and these two chairs were meant for people to watch the world go by and have a few sun-downers.



The view from the balcony is very interesting and ever changing as the huge tankers make their way across the bay to Egypt and Israel.



That evening we had a lovely Italian meal in one of the hotel's restaurants overlooking the sea. This was a very nice way to end our first day.

It's a fair journey to the Jordanian border so a tank full of petrol is a must! You can see that we will not be getting any BLT's in this classy establishment. The petrol is very inexpensive here but during Ramadan you have to make sure they don't fill the tank up with diesel, it happens frequently because of language difficulties and the fact that they are up all night eating.



As you head north west you go through some of the most amazing desert scenery. This is typical topography for an area that stretches right up to Wadi Rhum in Jordan; the valley where Lawrence met with all of the tribal leaders before he went on to Aqaba.



Of course it wouldn't be a drive through the desert without the camels. This one was on the road and refused to move; it even looked at me with disdain!
Finally at Hakal, still in Saudi Arabia, you journey along the edge of the Red Sea towards the border. Look carefully, the little pyramids in the water are actually to stop boats from landing, no unwelcome visitors allowed here unless you have a visa in your passport.

It is 6.15pm local time and I've popped back into work because we still have major server problems at the villa where I live; would you believe directly opposite my classroom, over the road. I have taken some lovely photographs but I think you will have to wait and yes, before you ask, the camels are there!
Now I know I said that I would be away for a few days but come on something's dire when I come back and only one person logged on to my page on Thursday; oh, I am SO embarrassed! I check the tracking religiously as they are fascinating in themselves. In the last 3 weeks my name has been searched for over 9 times! Who is it and if they know me why don't they leave a message on the page? And if you are that person that keeps coming on to my page in the hopes of learning about 'in-line skates' please check-out the spelling of the name!