You can't get very far here without hopping on a plane. When I first came here I confess that my first solo flight was daunting. Many journeys hence I still view each journey alone with some trepidation. It is not uncommon to take 2 days to get home to Cyprus. So today I take my hat off to all the children who have parents here but who travel back and forth to the UK to get to boarding school.
D. came to visit me today to say goodbye as he was off back to school. His journey began at 12.30pm as he headed off to Amman in Jordan, a journey by road of some 5 hours plus. His flight to England leaves at 3.00am tomorrow morning. He goes to Frankfurt and then on to Heathrow. He then changes flights to Manchester where a taxi will take him to school. And his age? He's 11 and he was taking everything in his stride because he has an ambition to do well in school and be a pilot. I'm very proud of him.

On another note the storm from yesterday left everything covered in sand. Take a look at 'The Wagon'!

There's a sand storm blowing (of biblical proportions), I have been waiting for the children to come trick or treating, I am reading Want to Play? Hide and Seek and Kill by P.J. Tracy and I have just watched Sanctimony! Phil is in Riyadh so I am on my own for two nights and...I'm spooked.

I find the recent interest in politics in the States very interesting indeed. It would seem that the female voters are being asked to register and use their voice to vote.
From an early age I was aware of my parents talking, heatedly sometimes, about politics. They had lived through the depression of the thirties and felt that voting for them was almost considered mandatory. My mother was a staunch Labour supporter and my father would never divulge to anyone where his allegiance lay. You can imagine the effect that this had on my mother! So when I took Politics at Advanced level they were thrilled.
Having been aware of the dissent that politics created in what was a fairly normal household during my childhood, I was reluctant to discuss issues of this nature with John. We were young, just married and living in our first home in Streatham, London. Streatham is a nice area of the London suburbs with nice houses and a strong nucleus (at this time) of middle aged people who had a decent standard of living.
So when the elections were imminent I tentatively asked John what he felt about the calibre of the candidates in our ward? What resulted was a wonderful discovery that we both felt exactly the same. This liberation went to our heads and so we put a huge poster in the front window that stated: Vote for Tom Cox your Labour Party candidate.
Well all of those white net curtains started to twitch, ours was the only window with a political message. However, the next morning, as we emerged from our door for work we couldn't help but notice the window opposite had a poster urging everyone to vote for the local Conservative Party candidate. Returning that evening we counted twenty windows with posters all with a conservative bias.
Before the week was over there didn't seem to be a window without a poster. We were the only red in a sea of blue. John always saw the humour in every situation and set about making and putting up red bunting on the front of the house. He managed to get hold of more posters and no one could be in any doubt as to where our allegiance lay.
Our neighbours suddenly started to smile and say good morning, the old gentleman next door gave us vegetables from his allotment and we were invited to a garden party given by a local Conservative party supporter (and we went).
The amazing thing about this was that instead of dividing us, politics had helped to get us more accepted into the community.

I wrote this post earlier in the day. I have just watched Fahrenheit 9/11 and I am reeling from the shock of it. Help me Tami!

Remember the mosquito spray that Phil bought that turned out to be flea powder? Well he finally got the spray but look what it's called.



So where do you think I should spray it? No don't go there, please!

Every week a siren goes off at… (Well I can hardly let that out, now can I?) just in case the awful happens here. We are meant to have a designated space which we go to in a real crisis and await the all-clear. In the beginning you can imagine that communications didn’t reach all people and so they rushed to their ‘panic zone’. Now in some ways these people are fully prepared because they will already know that they can hear the all-clear from their emergency quarters. The joke that went around was that if you didn’t see someone for a few days they were still sitting waiting for the all-clear.
Now I know it goes off each week and when it's going to happen, so why is it that when it does start screaming I jump out of my skin, run round like a headless chicken shouting “DON’T PANIC!”?

Words drifted without gravitas, like feathers in the air on a windy day. This general drift of conversation was not intrusive until the gentleman on the table to the left decided to enlighten us all on the potential, as he saw it, for Aqaba to become a place of some significance. As he warmed to his topic he became louder and louder obviously enjoying his own performance. Soon he was dominating the conversation not only on his own table but also on ours and the table to our right. I sat drumming my fingers through comments that were implying that as a resort Aqaba was totally insignificant, that tourists much prefer to go to Ellat, Egypt or Sinai, Petra was only popular since Raiders of the Lost Ark and the best thing for Aqaba would be to turn it into a huge petro-chemical plant!
Now were we being dense because it seemed to be so simple to him? You know the way that in mathematics some people find quadratic equations pure and beautiful, while others are confused and blinded by them? No I think not! I happen to enjoy mathematics what I find difficult to comprehend are people who are placed in positions where their opinions and sweeping generalizations can dismiss a culture, a country and it’s people, thousands of years of history when they have only been in that country for a day!
Thankfully Cherie from Oregon couldn’t stand to listen to it either. She went over, introduced herself and then as politely as she could tried to explain how she felt about Jordan. I suppose I didn’t help the situation by applauding her and both Phil and I then gave her our support. Unfortunately, he was not prepared for, or appreciated, our condemnation of his opinions. I always think someone loses the argument when they get personal and he did straight away. Apparently we were rude to intrude on his personal conversation. How on earth could we avoid it, he was so loud? And if we heard surely the Jordanian guests on other tables and the waiters would have heard too? That’s what I call rude.

Before I embark on the events that led to our head to head with other guests in the restaurant last Thursday evening, I need to make a few things very clear.
I really enjoy going to Jordan, Aqaba in particular. It is a beautiful and interesting resort on the northern most tip of the Red Sea. I admit that the infra-structure could be better for tourists and it isn’t quite the jewel in the crown as Petra is. However, it has a quaintness and honesty that is priceless. Jordanians are strong on culture and are very proud of their country, wanting to share it with foreign visitors.
I also have an admiration for the people who live on the other side of the pond. Many family holidays have been taken in the States and I have the utmost respect and admiration for the American people.
Now that’s clear I can tell you what led up to the fracas that we found ourselves in last week. The setting was the balcony of the Red Sea Grill and a meal that we were looking forward to. Our table was between two others both occupied by American guests. To our right was a couple who were obviously having a wonderful holiday enjoying all that Jordan has to offer. They were enthusing about diving at the Royal Jordanian Diving Club and the magnificence of the coral reef. At the other table there were two men and a woman.
The tables were not too close together and the night air was still and balmy. So now you have the background and tomorrow you get what followed.

I know it's been just ages and you all thought that I had dropped off the face of the earth. Well bending to pressure I am here again and as I have a weeks vacation I should be able to write each day.
The multi exit/re-entry visa is now in the passport and so these last two weekends have seen us in Aqaba in Jordon. To break myself in gently here are a few photographs to set the scene:



We were fortunate to have a suite for both weekends, this is the bedroom.



I just love seafood and so I ate lobster in the Red Sea Grill, at every opportunity.
Both weekends were fabulous but tainted by the bombing in Taba, Egypt. You can see the hotel from the Saudi/Jordanian side of the Red Sea coast.
Tomorrow I will be telling you about the people we met in the restaurant and the subsequent altercation with them! You won't want to miss that!