lorna of arabia

Well here we are at the Ides of March- and another weekend here been and gone.Matthew flew home on Wednesday and on Thursday five of us went to the terrace at le Meridien as usual- Shane flying back to Melbourne on Friday morning. Friday here was quite hot ,very humid and very foggy Ian and Sally had the car so we just relaxed at home and did the supermarket shop across the road. In the late afternoon when Ian and Sally returned from the beach we all drove out to yet another mall- one I had not ticked off my list- ibn buttata- named after the famous Arabian explorer.We had our evening meal there using our buy one get one free tokens of course!! On saturday we all drove up to Hatta as Ian and Sally ... read more

October 11th Al Garoud For the last two weeks we have been at the villa in Al Garoud near the airport this had good and bad points. The good points were a less rarified life closer to normality and some loss of weight away from the wondrous cuisine of the glasshouse- not to mention the ever present treats in the executive lounge and happy hour. The bad points were the pigeons and the street cats which all use the backgarden as their personal domain and I was constantly clearing up after them. The villa is " of its time" and all in all was spacious and well designed and we know the guy- Prakesah who had moved out with his wife and children when he was moved to Abu Dhabi. There were naturally the signs of ... read more

Sunday 21st September When you drive from the Emirate of Dubai into the Emirate of Abu Dhabi there is a marked difference in what you see. Abu Dhabi is very green thanks to the last sheikh.The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan learning that 15,000 years ago the Arabian Peninsula was a very different place to that we see now with thick forests and very green but after it was exposed to a long spell of drought the forests died and were buried giving the oil that they have today-decided to retun the greenery to Abu Dhabi and tied to hold the encroaching desert back.The sands were drifting onto the farms and plantations - he developed extensive projects to level the dunes and sand hills and cover surface areas with mud. he set up green ... read more

Thursday September 18th Well it is the weekend here again- a hazy day but the wind has got up and it is rumoured that we will have a sand storm.I have not been out again today as it is very sticky and unpleasant- my room overlooks a tiny building site where a couple of labourers are building something and Ian and I keep trying to guess what. It is taking them ages- Ian watched their labours last time he was here- it is in complete contrast to the vast building sites all round the Emirates where the scene is constantly changing at great speed. What concerns me is that one of the labourers actually lives on the site and in the evenings he settles down on a wooden plank and goes to sleep. This makes me ... read more