Back in the snow

I am back in the uk for a few days over half term. We flew in on thursday morning and the kids and I arrived home on friday night & surprised everyone, as apart from one, no one knew we were coming. We have a covering of snow & it is 30C cooler than when we left the kingdom on wednesday night! We are off back to Saudi next thursday.

Turtles, Dolphins and Abayas

So, another weekend been & gone and we have been back to the Red Sea. Him indoors diving as per New Year and the kids & I relaxing. The weather would have been warmer than new year but there was a pretty strong breeze on both days. On the beach this just meant that I got a good exfoliation as I was sand blasted in a minor way. Unfortunately for him indoors the wind had somewhat stirred up the silt under water so the visibility was not as good as it had been at New Year. We had a great day out on the boat again yesterday, & although it was windy the sea was fairly calm. Even I had a snorkel about ( it was a bit of an experiment to see if I could get away with wearing a mask and my contacts and i am glad to say it worked, I used one of the kids masks so now I shall have to get my own) I didn't stay in too long but I managed to see loads of different fish. I missed the main event of the day however as Him indoors and our oldest managed to see & swim along side a turtle. Cue a very excited 10 year old who thought it was one of the coolest things she has ever done and can't wait to go back and do it again. The captain of the dive boat spent most of the day in a balaclava as he thought we were all a bit mad to be diving in "the middle of winter" - after all the sea temp was a freezing 28C and it was in the 80s, but as he said "things will start to improve at the end of the month once spring comes" On the way back to shore (we sail for about an hour to get to the different reefs/wrecks to dive to) we were joined by about 20 dolphins, they were fab, using the wake to do their acrobatics in, we had a full blown somersault from one absolutely brilliant - it was just like being as sea world only for real. I was sat on the boat thinking what a fab place to live right up until we came back into the creek where the harbour is & I had to put my abaya back on top of my swim suit and get back to the real Saudi. Honestly if it wasn't for the rules here they would make a fortune out of tourists. Anyone would have paid a fortune to have a day like we had yesterday.

Pets

The Saudis do not seem to have pets in quite the same way as we do in the UK. The well off Saudis keep camels in the same way that we keep horses, they race them and breed them. Saudis are also apparently keen on birds of prey but I haven't seen much evidence of this. I have seen trill and whiskas food in the supermarkets so I assume that they do keep birds in cages and pet cats, but the one thing that they don't seem to do is dogs. This doesn't mean to say that there are no dogs here. There are millions of them, all wild and roaming around scavenging. This causes me an massive problem as we have a large and at times extremely noisy bunch of feral dogs living just outside the compound at the back of our house. When it cools down at night they fight. Last night I was woken at 2.30 by some huge dog fight that went on for at least 40 minutes. It is horrible if you are awake and inevitably the fight ends and you are left with the sounds of a dog or two out of the rival packs whimpering as they have been injured, which is really horrible. On the nights that they don't seem to have a mass fight then you can guarantee that there will be one or to dogs who spend half the night calling to each other so you still end up not having a good nights sleep. Luckily we are getting close to having to turn our air conditioning on again at night as the temperature here has really heated up in the last week or so. Once the AC is back on the drone of that in the house cancels out the noise from outside so normal sleeping will hopefully resume.

Andy Murray

Obviously I have been glued for the last 2 weeks to the Aussie Open Tennis. I have always maintained, having seen them both play at Wimbledon, that Andy Murray was streets ahead of Tim Henman and therefore our best bet to end the 74 year male grand slam drought. That was until yesterday, when I thought that Murray had come out without a game plan and seemed like a bunny caught in the headlights. Yes, he played some good tennis but was always a step behind Federer.. in comparison to the way he was beating Nadal when he retired, it was like a different person was on court. However I think my immediate reaction was wrong. Not only was the whole blubbing like a baby completely unexpected, showing his disappointment and frustration, and his own belief that he could do better than that, but the comments made by Federer this morning have made me realise that Murray did OK yesterday, Federer thinks that yesterdays match was the best he has ever played - and Murray still broke his serve and had him running about at times like he was an amateur. Having slept on it, I still believe that Murray will win a grand slam, and soon, and that once he has one the first many more will follow!.... Feel free to get me to eat my hat in a few years if I am proved wrong!