This Bud's For You - Rant Warning

First let me say I had a perfect Dubai weekend. It began on Thursday night with and unplanned evening with friends that finished up eating out by the sea at the sailing club. That evening led to a pj day on Friday and relaxing evening watching a film.

Saturday was a day out in the desert - wadi bashing with friends. I love Dubai but the craziness of it can and does get to you. So a little effort is required to escape the madness. After a leisurely breakfast at the aforementioned sailing club watching the racing dhows prepare just off the beach, we set off to Wadi Ray in Oman.

First rant - just across the border into spectacular scenery the small truck in front of us first chucks soda can out of the window then a plastic bag. This is one of the most beautiful if stark spots on earth and suddenly the pristine landscape becomes dustbin.

We made to the wadi detouring to enjoy the geology (bonus of having a DH a geologist). We arrive at the wadi and find just two other Dubai cars parked there. This is a bonus as on the weekends beauty spots can be packed. We were delighted to find that there was actually some water in the wadi (wadis are dry river beds and some have pools of varying sizes). We slowly drove up the wadi to find a picnic spot. In the shade of a dying date plantation we stopped. It was just us, the flies and the wasps - quite perfect.

Then coming from the direction of the village a large crowd appeared. No problem until I saw how they were dressed - HELLO. This is not Brighton Beach but Oman. All the men bar the boy were topless and none had a body worthy of exposure. This in itself wasn't the problem for me (although why I had to look a their sunburned beer guts I don't know) - it was the lack of cultural respect. Don't they know that this type of exposure of skin may be okay on a Dubai beach, but not anywhere else. The women were all in short shorts and tank tops. Even now I find anger bubbling in me.

So my totally perfect weekend was scarred (which I can certainly handle) but this lack of respect drives me wild......society as a whole has lost respect. People swear on a continuous basis regardless of who may have to hear. They dress inappropriately for their location. This is a problem world-wide and is a total outward symptom of the me me focus of today. 'If I want to swear - it's my right too. I don't care if there is a child near by so what. If I want to strip off - it's my right to. I'm hot and I don't care if the view of my naked body offends and so on....'

I know this rant makes me sound frightfully old fashioned, but I see evidence of the lack of respect everywhere I go. People not giving up seats to the elderly or the pregnant. How they treat people working in shops, on buses and trains. Listening to their private music so loud that three carriages could hear it let alone the poor person with the seat beside. Or the deliberate polution with rubbish.

I ask myself continuously why this is happening. What is so different today than ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Has this rise in self, this cult of me, led to loss of respect of self.? Here - I am thinking of binge drinking.....I could go on but I won't.

Instead of more ranting, I will leave you with some beautiful pictures of the weekend and wish you a respectful week treating others as you wished to be treated.

PS I think the picture of the Bud Tree says it all.... (the bag trees were in full bloom too plus the odd goat tree here and there :-) )

Happy Easter and Wadi Again

It's been a strange Easter Day here. I am used to tradional ones and this one has been any but.... We went to the children's Easter vigil service last night as dd left this morning for her two day residental away from us :-(

However it wan't the usual church thing......we were not allowed to park near the churches and we were searched going in.......also there was a very nice dish dashed man who stood quietly at the back of the church and sereval about the building. There is a point when one knows in one's bones that all was not right and here I was bringing someone elses child into danger. I am pleased to say that all was fine and I thanked the police at the gate who were quietly doing a great job.

So that left today feeling very empty. DD left at 7:30 and we took the boys to the wadi where we took sil. So they swam, climbed a mountain and ate turkey legs with humous. I must confess I was missing DD and roast lamb but it was a brilliant day.

BTW the Easter Bunny was very obliging and came on Saturday morning for us.

Procrastenation

We were up early this morning to go dolphin watching and we weren't disappointed. I have never seen so many.......

The scenery was bliss - here's a few photos to expalin why the latest chapter of Explosive Dreams isn't written. I promise you I am going to work on it now - just before happy hour and maybe tomorrow morning before we head back to Dubai I'll post it - well one can hope!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Well, it's down as a first - St. Patrick's Day in Oman and I haven't brought any green to wear.

I'm just out side Muscat and the temperature is somewhere above 30 and the pool is bliss. Enjoyed a lunch of salad, calamari and white wine.......feeling very content having just finished Julie Cohen's One Night Stand. I smiled laughed my way through until the very end when a few tears appeared behind the sun glasses. I love it when I read a book and managed to lose myself in it and forget the skill that went into it. I giggled and blushed (must have been the heat) and just thoroughly enjoyed this book. I think very few writers could have pulled off the premise for this book and made it so bl..dy good........

Hopefully the next installemt of Explosive Dreams will be up tomorrow!

A Few Pics For The Road

Had a fabulous few days away and I'll let the pictures do the talking...... These were taken near the Ray pools and Hatta. I'm off to Muscat tomorrow for a few days. Think I'll have internet access.........

The Dickens Challenge and Links

As I wrote this week's chapter for the Dickens Challenge I realized that I have been writing scenes and not chapters as such. I think this was deliberate on my part as I am posting them on my blog I didn't want them to be too long and bore my readers or ruin their eyes! I also tend to write short chapters but not generally as short as the ones in Explosive Dreams. I have to say that on one hand I am loving writing this because I feel so free to write what ever comes into my head and yet absolutely terrified at just putting my writing out there. (I know I post frequently so my writing is out there but my blog is more like the workings of my brain and not the polished prose I hope comes out at the other end of the writing process).

My rewrite has ground to halt with half terms, Oman and DH still being under foot. I am having great trouble finding a routine. Hopefully I can claw this back but sil is arriving on the 6th so it could all be just a dream.

Yet again Steve Malley has put together a useful post this time on size.....of manuscript that is and some useful tips for making yours fit the genre you are aiming for. Over on Susan Hill's Creative Writing Course here she gives some sound advice for writing dialogue.

Oman Part 3

After a lazy lunch under a tree we set off for the other end of the Sayq Plateau to Ar Rus where we were greated by a flock of young boys welcoming us in brilliant English. They were keen to be photograghed and to show us the beauty of their village. They were upset when we set off to the explore further as the sun would soon be setting and we didin't want to drive around in the dark!

After Ar Rus we stopped in two villages whose names I can't remember but by the time we reached the last one which was hung onto the edge of cliff the light was gone and the moon was rising over the mountains.

When we made the trip to Venice back in June I became obcessed by the laundry lines well in the mountains it was the trees with the tortured knarly trucks that kept drawing my camera......
The following morning we were feeling a little jaded after celebrating our glorious day out with a bit too much wine but nothing the less we opted to take the route through the mountains towards Rustaq that would be beyond what we could have imagined.

We left the main road a Tanuf and took the steep switchbacks up the mountains and cut across to the route we wanted. The road was tarmaced which deflated us as we steadily climbed to about 2600 metres. We stopped on the top to enjoy the view before heading of our way. The tarmaced road ended and we found ourselves of gravel path hugging the side of the mountain as we wound our way down. Not only we DH's hand sweaty mine were as I tried not to look at the 1000 plus metre drop just a few feet away! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos at the top as my hand shake would have ruined it.

The first photo here is one of DS1's.

So we slowly wound our way down to work back up and over again before coming into the wadi proper. Another one of DS1's photos shows a pool in an oasis.

The road flattened out through the wadi with small villages scatted along the edges. Dates palms relieved the hardness of the rock and the vidid colours of the grasses brought the wadi to life.

Soon it was all behind us and we drove back across from Rustaq toward Ibri and then on to Al Ain and back to Dubai. As we skirted the Empty Quarter a Shamal began and the road was covered in sand that swirled like steam rising from a lake. First it would dash from the left in sinuous curves then come from the right sometimes obscuring the tarmac completely. It was so mesmurizing that I fell asleep - thankfully I wasn't driving at that point!

Exploring Oman Continued

From the comments yesterday I gather people are under the expectation that this part of the world is about shopping, bling and beaches. Well it is but if you scratch the surface a bit it is much much more but of course it all depends on what you seek. This week we wanted the raw untouched Arabia and the interior of Oman provides that in bundles.

As you take the road from Al Ain in the Emirates down into Oman the road skirts the Empty Quarter and sand dunes roll up to the road. Only the strangely elegent wirey tress break up the smooth curves. On the other side of the road the spine of Hajar mountains guide you further into this fantasic scenery.








Yesterday I brought you as far a glimpse of the the village above Wadi Bani Habib. On the climb down you heard the drone of bees and the strange contrast of the cherry blossom with the large boulders on the wadi bed. Looking up you see these wonderful slightly crumbling structures. There missing roofs and walls creating beautiful cutouts with the too blue sky. However it was the surprise of the beautifully decorated interiors that take your breath away.

We left the village reluctantly even after the thigh breaking climb back to the car. From there we drove across the plateau tempted by glimpses of villages in the wadi but only turned off the road when we caught a glimpse of this.

Road trips with the Fenwicks entail a great deal of photography - that includes the kids and forces our guests in the same. Here is the artist Paul Wadsworthfilming the gorge with DH in the distance.

Not far from here we stopped for lunch and the Paul ran an inpromtu painting class with the kids over looking this view.

Did I mention the fossil hunting? Well DH is a geologist by degree so he quickly spotted and pointed out the fossil in the roacks we were blithely trecking over. Its hard to look down when you have such stunning scenery but we did and were rewarded with finding sea shell fossils in the rocks below are feet.

Tommorw I will blog about remote village of Ar Rus and its friendly kids and our final day driving over the mountains on perilous switchbacks........

Borin' Explorin' - NOT

We escaped to the Hajar Mountains in Oman and I find it difficult to put into words the raw beauty of the place. So I will use dd's words (her's above - borin' explorin') and my photos to give you a feel.

Here is a sand castle (the ruins of the Al Sulaif Fortress town near Ibri which date back to the 11th century)

We also stopped at a village where we met this colourful fellow.

A brief stop in the the fortress town of Bahla and on through Nizwa to reach our hotel, the Jabal Akhdar Hotel, up some 2000 plus metres on the Sayq Plateau. According to dd it has very comfortable beds!

The following morning saw us heading to the abandoned village of Bani Habib. Nothing quite prepares you for the stunning beauty of it and the wadi it sits above. Cherry blossoms were in the bloom and the wildly noisy murmuring of the bees intruding on the silence. (first 2 photos here are ds1's)

Blogger doesn't want me to post any more photos at the moment so until tomorrow, ciao!