High maintenance ladies and their fashions…

If you are a lady around these parts your jewellery is not only worn on yourself, it also extends to some other objects in daily use. Let’s say you have a fully optioned BMW to take you around. Well why not match it to your ring or earrings. Perhaps like this:

Of course with a matching diamond studded rear badge:

But where does one find such lovely pieces of jewellery? Several fine establishments such as this one may be able to help in selecting just the right piece that says “You” like no other.

 

Now that you have that sorted out why not get some haute couture fashion advice. You do not want to be “fashion tragic” now do you? So listen up and follow the wise words below:

There you go. No need to be ever found wanting now.

Lost in translation III…..

Back to our favourite subject, the use, misuse, mangling, damaging, contorting, distorting, perverting, twisting, injuring, misusing and generally abusing of the beloved English language.

So how do you tell when an Arabic speaker works for a marketing department of the food company? Easy. When you see food labels like this:

On the other hand if your kids don’t like the healthy taste of “abricots” why not just give them some of this ghetto favoured delicious snack:

Ideal snack for busy families with not much time on their hands. Speaking of no “time on your hands” could it be that your watch is simply out of order. No problems, trusted Swiss trained master watchmakers such as this one will take care of it for you:

And if you not happy with quality of work performed there you may simply take it to his mate:

Of course you will need that watch to be in tip=top shape in order not to be late for work, especially with these working hours:

Ahhhh… The marvels of English.

A Hard rain ‘s gonna fall…

Saudi Arabia, a land where global warming had arrived probably 20,000 years ago, a land so dry that it has the greatest expanse of completely lifeless desert in the world. The “Rub Al Khali” or better known as the “empty quarter”. There is so little rain here that everyone forgets to build any kind of infrastructure associated with drainage.

The roads here have no drains at all and when it does rain it floods within minutes. The roads turn into rivers that run deep and fast.

We have just a few days of rain here which is a bit unusual for this time of year. It was simply amazing to watch the entire place turn into a lake in a matter of hours.

Some watery scenes:

It is such a contradiction here that you have the extremes of dryness followed by the floody water abundances. The water usually hangs around for about 2 weeks afterwards in pools. Surrealisam at its best.

My Green City…

Green City compound in Riyadh was our home for about 2 years back in 1990’s. We all have so many fond memories there. It was a brand new compound with large spacious villas and best of equipment. In a lot of ways it was a bit of a resort. It was situated near the Sheraton hotel and had a lot of empty blocks right around it.

On our recent visit to Riyadh I made it a first priority to go and revisit the place and its environs. Some of the old food shops which were around the corner were still there like Mama Noura’s. That place has some mighty mixed grilles, shwarmas and freshly squeezed juices.

 

Another view:

 

Everything else was there, the chemist, opticians, kepsa shop, and of course the mosque right on the corner.

However it was a bit heartbreaking to see the compound entrance. It has been turned into a fortress. There were substantial barriers and machine gun nests everywhere. I guess it did remind me of the realities of life here in the middle East. We take things like vehicle checks, compound barriers and security everywhere as pretty normal. Our compound here is guarded by the National Guard corps. You always know when there is something going on as they turn out in their full combat gear, bullet-proof vests, helmets and guns in hand. The vehicles have to stop and are checked with underside mirrors, boots open etc. When things are normal they just wave us through.

This is the entrance to the green city now:

 

 

This is the back:

 

I guess that it is a reality and it must be done. I am just glad that we were here at a more innocent time and that we were able to enjoy the city of Riyadh pretty much unfettered.

My big sports day…

When leaving for Saudi one of the big attractions was the activity rich compound life that I remember so well from our time in the Green City in Riyadh. There was a gym, sauna, Turkish steam bath, spas, pool and the recreation facilities. Expectations were that our compound will offer just as much if not a lot more. I have been trying to motivate myself for a little while to get on with the fitness side of my life.

We have had some boomerang throwing lessons here from another Aussie guy (Dr. Bruce Wills) as well as some volleyball games. I have been nicknamed “Cannonball” for my powerful overhead serves which I specifically aim at the 8 year old compound kids who join us in the games J. Their hands are so tiny and fragile. They also cry J. Our first game was played in the kids playground where large concrete chunks are hidden by 3 cm of sand. It was fun diving for the ball. The “net” was the rusty swing frame. Made it all a lot more fun in an “avoid the serious injury” kind of way.
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So at any rate I put on my best lycra shorts and went off in search of sporting activities. I’ll have a game of billiards I thought (my kind of heavy exertion sport). When I got to the billiards room this is what I found:

Oh well, a bit hard to execute cue tricks here I thought. Never mind. What next I thought. I know!! A spot of ten-pin bowling was just the ticket. Yes that was it! Power, precision, grace, control it’s all there perfectly combined and highly suited to my talents. Excitedly I rushed off to our 4 lane bowling alley. My excitement was greeted by this:

So ended my sports day. Never mind. I think I’ll do some yoga instead J

BTW I must admit that the compound rec-center is undergoing substantial renovations and that hopefully in a few months we will have the best of everything.

Back to blogging…

There has obviously been a hiatus in our blogging activities of recent. There was the Christmas and New Year’s so that took some ti4me away.However we are back on track now so there will be more content coming. There is a quite few topics to cover with some interesting things happening down here. So stay tuned and enjoy your readings.

I am listening right now to some really cool JJ Cale, the master of the understated as well as Jean Michel Jarre Geometry of love album. And just to spice up things I have some Dream Theatre stuff from last year. A very nice set .