Good morning

I’m sitting at my desk in the female campus, where most of the university is.  I sit with the psychologists, social workers and counsellors – the academics that is.  These are the greetings I’ve just heard called:
Salam Alaiykum (and the reverse)
Hi there! (Arabic accent)
Goeiemôre *
A very good morning (Indian accent)
Good morning madam (Filipino accent)
Hi there! (I’d say [...]

Dawkins

You wouldn’t be able to do this here.
There aren’t any buses.

Brand Oman

In Eid, after the ceremonial handing over of H’s PADI registration as Advanced Diver we left UAE on Tuesday 30th September. We were heading south on the coast road to Sur in Oman for turtle watching and potentially more diving. Sur is a 7 hour drive from our then position in the NE [...]

Shipping Departures Arrivals Landing

I packed up house contents into attic and into shipping pile before H came back to the UK for our wedding.
Our shipping left our house in Nottingham on 24th July.
H arrived in the UK on 26th July.
We were told the delivery date in Al Ain was indeterminate.
On 20th September the shipping left the UK.
It was [...]

The similarity between diving and driving

No sooner are we back from one holiday than we are, in a somewhat confusing manner, happily told about another. Rumour has it that we only have 12 working days in December, so I’m expecting more news soon about holidays for which everyone has already booked their flights and hotels but doesn’t know about yet.
I [...]

Photocopiers

You know that one about photocopiers always breaking down/getting jammed/running out of toner just when you’re having a last minute/running out of time/should have done this yesterday moment? Over here the photocopiers are slow but there are about three people responsible for each photocopier. They are the Photocopier In-charges. Photocopiers are therefore [...]

The Guardian

You can take a woman out of Britain but you can’t take away her British newsmedia. Praise be to the Guardian and BBC websites. Here I get to hear about floods and snow as I sit in the (quite nice now) 38 degrees of the afternoon. And here I get to read [...]

Pulling Teeth

Yesterday I visited the dentist again to see if there were any other teeth that she wanted to pull out. Luckily all she needs to do is clean them. Which will take about two hours and subject me to injections once more to stop me jumping all over the chair.
However I didn’t escape the [...]