LONG OVERDUE POST

FEB 13TH 2009

We woke up this morning to clear blue skies, sunshine and less dust in the air. The boys jumped into the pool before breakfast again while Margaret and I got a picnic ready to take with us on our trip out.

There were plenty of pit stops to grab more drinks from the cool box and stretch our legs. During the climb up this Jabal to get some photos I managed to get a thorn stuck in my forehead much to everyone's amusement.

Our first call was at a place called Nakhal where we visited the Fort which stands proudly surrounded by plantations.

In Oman the different districts are called Wilayats and the "Governors" of these areas are called Wali's. The Wali would have once lived, with his wives, in the Fort, now they live in beautiful and large houses.


After wandering around the amazing Fort we headed up through the very narrow, very crowded streets, due to the Mosque just closing, up to the hot springs for our picnic.

The people in the foreground are bathing and washing clothes in the warm water

We found our spot in the shade ate our picnic and hunted for fish in the warm water and found some along with a frog.


A bit further on we ran out of "black top" and dropped down into the Wadi Al Abyad to continue our journey. Wadi's are dried up river beds that become full when the rains come. It can be years between rain falls and a relatively small amount of rain (a days worth in the UK) can cause devastating flash floods filling the whole Wadi (all the grey stone in the picture).


We got out on the Wadi bed and listened to absolutely nothing, total silence like I have never heard before and played about in the small amount of water still there.

A bit of local wildlife taken from a moving car through the window

Before heading home we drove up to Barka to watch the bull fighting. The bull fighting here isn't like we know it instead it is bull against bull. They turn up on the back of pick up trucks to be unloaded and tied to a post to wait their turn. We are not sure how the bulls are chosen as it all seems a bit random. Two bulls are lead into the centre of the "ring" to face each other, the men let go of the tethers and the bulls fight. Each bout lasts only a matter of minutes before the bulls tethers are caught and the bulls removed from the ring. As far as we could work out it was rather like Bull Sumo and the bull pushed out of the ring lost. The spectators were all male and they seemed to be there more for the social aspect than the sport. No one cheered or clapped during the whole time we were there - very bizarre indeed.

HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING

FEB 12th 2009 2.20pm

It's about 28c, the boys are in the pool, Pete is asleep and I am sat on the deck in the hazy sunlight writing this. Despite going to bed at 2am Oman time (6am our time) we were up at 7.25am and Kyle was in the pool by 7.30am.

Yes this is how he sun bathes!

So far the day has been spent having a driving tour of Muscat, a quick drive up into the mountains where I didn't take any photos due to the dust storm that we are experiencing. From what we CAN see it is totally stunning here and I can't wait to start snapping away.

We ate lunch at a little place called "Stomach" which was delicious and now it is Siesta time. In a little bit we will be heading out to enjoy the last day of the Muscat Festival before going out to a Hawian themed party, held by Robert & Margaret's friend, later on this evening.

Taken just outside "Stomach"

Pete's Dad outside "Stomach"

FEB 12th 2009 10.50pm

The Muscat Festival was amazing the sights, sounds and smells were a totally new experience for us.

Pete's Mum playing odd one out

The men were mainly dressed in dishadasha's some of them even carried a khanjar which is a curved dagger worn at the waist.

The women were dressed in various ways but many wear an abaya some are fully veiled but most are not. Each region of Oman has different national dress for the women if they are not wearing the Abaya. Needless to say we stood out like sore thumbs as there are not many western visitors over in Oman at the moment.

We tried a traditional dish that was basically eggy bread cooked on a flat plate thingy and got some freshly squeezed candy cane drink which I can honestly say is the most revolting thing I have ever tasted strangely enough everyone else loved it.

The different tribes were singing and dancing.


There were displays of local culture and crafts.




The boys enjoyed a camel ride.


The small boy guiding Matt's camel wasn't so happy though as he got the fright of his life when Matt nearly crashed over the camels head onto him.

Look how quickly his arm is moving in panic!

We finished the day off at the party eating the most delicious Indian food I have ever tasted before going home for a well earned sleep.

I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked at the festival as I knew that in Oman you are not supposed to take pictures of people or their belongings with out asking permission first as it is frowned upon. Since returning home I have learnt that the pot of burning stuff on top of the ladies head is frankincense which is burnt mixed with charcoal. There are a lot of young women now choosing to wear the black Abaya's when they go out according to Robert this is a trend that has become much more popular in the last couple of years.

ARE WE THERE YET?

Or more to the point are the bags there yet?

FEB 11th 2009

After a night of no sleep at all I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, the numerous pig parts were packed away in the bags and we were all ready to leave for the airport at 5.55am.

Manchester Airport was as tedious as ever with the only bit of excitement being provided at security. It started when my boarding pass, which we had printed at home, was rejected meaning I had to go all the way back to check in to get issued with a new one while the males of the party waited for me on "the other side".

Once through Pete and Kyle set of the bleep machine that you walk through so whilst Pete was stripping himself clean of anything metal and Kyle was being frisked, much to his disgust, I was attempting to persuade a nice man that we needed Pete's cough medicine to be allowed through even though it wasn't prescription.

We flew with Ethiad airlines and the plane was complete luxury compared to the Canada flights we have been on. We got complimentary flight socks each, padded headphones, drinks of our choice soft and alcholic and a menu to choose our inflight meal from. The next 7 hours were pretty boring really with the time spent watching films, in my case Wall E and City of Embers, and playing games on the entertainment system. I even managed to win £1m on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" just before we landed in Abu Dhabi.

The landing cameras were then all turned on and we all watched our descent down to the brightly lit runway. Just as we were bracing ourselves for touch down the thrusters roared back into life and we were suddenly hurtling skywards at a rate of knots. Now despite what Pete says I wasn't scared, I didn't nearly wet myself and I didn't clutch on to him for dear life and if I did happen to do one or two of the above it was only to make him feel better. 10 minutes later a new attempt was made on a different runway with no strong tail winds.

After a short wait the 2nd flight of the day turned out to be much more interesting than the first. We all filed onto the plane where everyone other than ourselves and one other family were Arabs. This is where we learnt pretty quickly that they must bathe in smellies as the stench of musky aftershave was overpowering. Everything was ready for take off apart from a missing passenger who arrived late and then the silly man decided that he didn't like the seat he had been assigned and refused to sit down and no-one was going to persuade him otherwise, well not for another 45 minutes anyway. During this time we were sat in an enclosed space where at least 3 Omanie men had the most horrendous hacking coughs, probably due to the perfumed atmosphere. At one point I did suggest that Pete should either a) stop breathing so that he didn't catch anything or b) give them all a slurp of his cough medicine that I had managed to hold on to. Eventually Mr Stroppy Arab man decided to stop tantruming as they had threatened to throw him off the plane, and sat down so we were finally on our way.

Upon arrival we had a small queue for our hand luggage to be x-rayed and to purchase our Visa so that we could enter the country. We then had to pick up the hold luggage and this is when my worst nightmare became a reality with the dreaded missing bag. I surprised myself by not panicking, not even slightly. We filled in the forms, met Robert and drove to his house about 30 minutes away which meant we arrived there 15 hours after we had locked our front door AND we had managed to avoid the pork sausage, pork pie, ham and bacon smugglers prison.

I know that I am slightly behind with these posts but they were written on the day that I have set them as in a little notebook. I just couldn't get them onto the Internet due to the crappy Internet connections available in Oman and it seemed a shame not to post them like I had originally planned.

BELLY SURFING

I was going to be really busy today making sure that the house was nice and clean before we jet off to the sun but things conspired against me - mainly Pete. Pete has a fixation with the snow, he loves it, so this morning I was hassled to go up to Buxton to go sledging, against my better judgement I may add!!! For those that have read my blog for a while you will know that Pete is accident prone. He has fallen off a skateboard and chipped his elbow, he has been knocked off his push bike resulting in a broken shoulder, broken elbow and broken ribs and just before a big holiday in Canada a couple of years ago the rope swing he was on snapped and he fell 30 foot breaking a few ribs in the process. Pete going sledging just 2 days before a long haul holiday is not the best idea in the world but he promised he wouldn't have a go and I believed him. The sledge that Kyle and Pete made a few weeks ago was packed along with 3 plastic ones and some spare clothes and off we went.

Remember I mentioned we took 4 sledges with us??? This was the preferred method of getting down the slopes for both of the boys - anyone for belly surfing?

I won't go sledging I'll only watch - yeah right Pete.



Mrs Blobby on a sledge....

I can say that the hugeness is in part caused by 2 pairs of pants and 4 jumpers.

According to Kyle this is what gay sledging looks like from behind.

TOUGH LOVE

I may have found my chat, I haven't claimed it back yet but it is definitely starting to peep out of it's hidey hole. I now just need to find the desire to use my camera again.

My wonderful eldest son put me in a difficult spot this week. Due to us being somewhere hot and sunny next week on the day of the parent teacher interviews I had asked his form tutor, during a telephone conversation, if I could write notes to all his teachers for feedback. Instead she took it upon herself to write notes to them all requesting the information I needed, collect all the resulting notes and then post them out to me - wonderful woman I can not praise her high enough. The reason I was on the phone to her in the first place??? She called me last Friday night, from home, to let me know that Matthew had an important piece of English homework (she is his English teacher too) that he had not handed in and it needed doing over the weekend and then explained exactly what was needed to me - like I said a fantastic teacher.

I digress. Mr Posty bought us these notes on Thursday lunch time while we were both at home. They were opened and read accompanied with lots of tuts and sighs. This is where I must stress that I don't mind what grades my children get as long as it is their best effort whether it be a D, C or an A*. Matthew, according to his teachers, is capable of A's and A*'s in all but one of his subjects. The maths teacher even commented that he has a "real ability" just before he mentions lazy and childish. They also say that he had improved before Christmas making a real effort - now could this have been me threatening to cancel his Christmas I wonder??? but since New Year he has slipped back.

He was warned, more than once, what would happen if he did this again. As always, true to my word and not one for idle threats I got on the phone to his form tutor. We discussed the notes and then I requested that he be put on report. So now every lesson he has to hand in a sheet to his teacher at each of his 5 lessons and they have to grade his effort and behaviour from 1-5. If he gets a 1 or 2 for any of these he gets an instant detention that night and he is banned from the Xbox at home. 3 and above means he gets to go on the Xbox for a limited time that evening AFTER I have inspected his homework diary, school books and his homework. This way I am getting to know everything that happens in lessons and can act accordingly. Yesterday was his first day and I am pleased to say that he stepped up to the mark and got 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 which isn't bad. It was his form tutor who gave him the 3 due to him loosing his book ???!!! Guess what he is doing today until he finds it.

Does parenting ever get any easier??? At the moment it just seems to be getting harder and harder. I was 100 times worse than Matt at his age so I am sure that this serves me right, I can almost see my parents nodding as they read this last comment with a wry smile on their faces.

I will be back at some point soon with a photograph as SuzyB has tagged me to do the 6 of 6. Thanks Suzy!

COLD & CHATLESS

I keep meaning to post and then I realise I'm not in a chatty mood and stop, this seems to have been happening for a while now and more so in the last week. Not sure why as everything is OK and it's not like me at all, I am sure I will find my chat lurking in a dark, cold corner very soon.

Pete had 2 hospital visits to attend last week which were very well timed as it happened. Out of the blue 3 weeks ago Pete's driving went a bit strange and he ended up reversing into a kerb thingy at Matt's friends house to cut a long story very short it ended up costing us £112 to replace the tire that he shredded. The following Sunday he decided that he was on holiday and started to drive on the wrong side of the road, stopped only by my very loud screaming and grabbing at the wheel. The scary thing was he didn't realise he was on the wrong side and he wasn't even looking at the road while he was driving which explains why he didn't see the car heading towards us at speed. We had also noticed that he was having problems when he was speaking as he frequently couldn't think of the word he needed. Pete was worried which never happens. We re-read the leaflets that come with his medication with no luck so it was looked up on the Internet and hey presto his new tablets can cause, dizziness, confusion and hallucinations.

As luck would have it he was seeing the nurse 2 days later about his medication and it was here that he told them he would not be taking this medication any longer due to the side effects. They have now prescribed a better drug that does the same thing and that he was due to start this week but Pete has postponed this until we return from our hols. The next day he went to see Dominic, his kidney Doc, to get some results and have his quarterly check up. So for our records his kidney function is stable, low but stable it may have even gone up a little bit but Pete's weight has gone down so that could be effecting the results. Blood pressure and cholesterol are both OK. Blood count had dropped from 100 to 92 (160 is normal) in the space of 5 days which is not good but on the other hand it is high for Pete even with the sudden drop. His folic acid levels are high so he has to reduce that tablet to once a week. His epo injections are now ever 8 days instead of every 10 much to Pete's disgust. His B12 levels are low so he may need to start having injections of that in the near future as the tablets are not doing enough.

Since he stopped taking the immunosuppressants last week we have noticed a difference mainly that he is making a lot more sense when he is talking and his driving is back to normal and we feel safe again!
Last week we all had to go shopping for summer clothes, which is not easy when it is so cold outside and the shops still have their winter stock and dark colours. I failed miserably on Sunday at the Trafford Centre but thankfully Pete and the boys managed to get what they needed. I was luckier yesterday in Chester and managed to get enough things to see me through the holiday. I didn't need a lot but I did need some very light weight things to cover my shoulders as I am not allowed to show them when we are out and about in Oman and my whole summer wardrobe is full of strappy tops. So now the only thing left to do is get the suitcases out of the attic and pack them ready to go. I'm just hoping that this snow stops and Manchester Airport doesn't get closed before we fly out as I need to get warm and we will definetly manage to get warm in temps of 26c in the day and 18c at night.

I would like to thank.....

... SuzyB for this lovely award.

Not sure what the rules are if there are any for passing it on so without further ado I will award it to Mima, Sue (I know Suzy already awarded her but I can't leave her out of my list), Eleanor, Jenga and Rach.

FRUIT

Just a very quick post from me at the moment as I am attempting to be productive today which is not really working. I have made a zero point butternut squash and chilli soup so I have managed something. I will try and do a catch up with the words I have missed on HSMSHS later on today.

This was taken in Canada at Ottawa's Byward Market.

Sport

It's too early for me to have anything of interest to say today.

Getting a Handle on things...

... well that's what I would like to be doing but it ain't happening at the moment. I seem to spend more time procrastinating than I spend doing, something that has to change. My doctors appointment went as expected in that I ended up very angry and panicked. The doc ended up taking my blood pressure which was rather over what is expected at about 175/155 but then again I could have told her that but would she listen to me about my white coat syndrome - would she hell. Her answer is for me to go to the hospital next week to be fitted with a 24 hour blood pressure monitor which I have to return to the hospital the next day. I tried to tell her that it would give false readings as not only have a been to the hospital but I am returning the next day so I will be highly agitated but she didn't listen. Since then I have been taking my own readings and they are all around the 109/70 143/76 123/81 mark so I know I don't have high blood pressure so we will just have to wait and see what happens next week, apart from me throwing up on the way to the hospital that is!

So for another quick catch up before I dash round to Mima's house to watch Mama Mia with her (much better than watching with 3 men/boys).


This picture is of my paternal great grandfather with his siblings and parents in the late 1800's. He is the youngest boy sitting at the front. Just look at my Great, great grandma I certainly wouldn't want to cross her she looks formidable.


A big thank you to everyone who has visited Matt's blog and left a comment. He is pretty short on time during the week but I am sure he will do some blog hopping himself at weekends to see everyone.

Queen of Hearts

I did mean to blog yesterday, I had even got most of the post written but then we went to play Badminton instead. I spent most of the time in my coat moaning about how cold it was so the decision was made not to go again now until the weather warms up a little as the sports hall was large and unheated. By the time we got home all I wanted to do was a have a drink and snuggle up in front of Big Brother for a mind numbing hour.

So now I am playing catch up with HSMSHS again.

I have managed to do today's word in good time mainly because it was taken last year. It is one of my favourite photos of Matt. We went for a walk near to a golf course and he found a lost and lonely ball so as we walked he played with it to cheer it up and of course I played with my camera.

Talking of Matt he will be starting his own blog shortly and joining in with HSMSHS. He has chosen photography as the skills part of his Duke of Edinburgh award and we decided that joining in with this would be the best form of motivation for him. He has to pursue this skill for at least 3 months and at the end of that time he has to make a presentation of his work and the skills he has learnt.

I'm now sitting here getting rather stressed out as I am going to see the Doc in an hour and my White Coat Syndrome is starting to raise its ugly head. It is the first time in years and years that I have been to see one about myself so I am not a happy bunny. There is nothing wrong with me it's just a precautionary thing because as of about 4 weeks ago both of my parents now have late onset diabetes. My Mum was told that it would be advisable for me to go and see a Doc straight away as I have a very high risk of getting it myself. My hands are starting to sweat already and I have a feeling that my teeth will be chattering like mad in the waiting room and my blood pressure will be through the roof.

Beginning of a New Year

A bit of cliché but yes it is the beginning of a New Year and yes I am going on a diet. It's not really a matter of having a choice in this I have to do it. We got a phone call on New Years Day from my In Laws asking when the next school holidays were and then saying that they were looking to book us flights out to Dubai so that we could spend 10 days with them in Muscat. It will be so nice to get some hot weather for a change and to spend some time with them the only problem is I don't fit into any of my summer clothes at the moment and there isn't much chance of buying any in the shops so Weightwatchers it is.


We had a lovely Christmas and we spent a lot of time out with the dogs and geocaching to then come home to a warm house, hot chocolate (not me I hate the stuff), XBox games and Wii tornaments. Most nights I was well and truly whopped at Mario Karts on the Wii but more often than not I got my own back on 10 pin bowling. I'm amazed that we have had the Wii since the first day it came out and we still play it regularly - well worth the money.

CHRISTMAS IS NOT CANCELLED .......

.... which to be honest with you is a huge relief as for a while it seriously looked like Matthew, our 15 year old, was going to spend the big day in his bedroom with no presents. It all started in the last school holidays when we got a letter from school saying that due to the large amount of minus points Matthew had incurred over the previous half term they were going to have to monitor him with a view to him going on report. To say I hit the roof was an understatement. However I am pleased to say that none of the minus points were as a result of him being nasty and rude they were for things like throwing a pencil, forgetting his PE kit, not concentrating, late homework and general tardiness. So like I said I hit the roof - rather hard.

So you can imagine the size of the bump on my head when we walked in from a weekend at Center Parcs and I opened his interim report, I am surprised you didn't all hear me yell. It is predicted by the teachers that Matthew will get mostly A and A* when he does his GCSE's next year but this report had C's and D's on it - not good. Don't get me wrong I don't mind what marks my children get as long as they are putting in the effort and trying to get the best grades that they are capable of. These C's and D's were for behaviour, effort and quality - not good at all. On one of the occasions I hit the roof (there were many) he was told that if he didn't buck his ideas up he wasn't going to have Christmas this year, instead he would get IOU's which could be cashed in when his attitude improved - basically his Christmas would be cancelled. Hard? Damn right it is and I meant every word of it he only gets one chance at this and I am not going to let him throw it away and he has lived with me for long enough to know that I don't bluff. He learnt that the hard way when he was in a slamming door faze he was warned that he would loose the door, and low and behold he did - for a week. We don't have a door slamming problem in this house anymore.

Anyway I digress. The school was closed on the Monday after the report was sent out for the parents to go in to meet the form tutors with their children. So off I went with my boys to see what was going to be said about them. I can't praise Matt's form tutor high enough, bless her, she was brilliant. I told her what I had said to Matt about Christmas and SHE suggested that she would ask for another report from all his teachers before the end of term so I could make a decision about his presents. So on Friday there was a message on my answering machine reporting that his work and attitude has improved greatly and in a maths test he had come top of the class. Miss Hall-Jones has even said she will do the same again at the end of January so that we can keep on top of him which I am very impressed with. So well done that boy he has saved Christmas!

Another little catch up for HSMSHS.

I personally prefer Quality Street, love the green triangles, but everyone else prefers Roses so Roses it is.

Pete is improving day by day. He goes for a blood test next Tuesday so we will find out how his blood count is then but for the time being he is back at work and seems fine.

On the up at last

I have nearly posted a number of times in the last couple of weeks but stopped myself as I wanted to be positive when I next posted. We now seem to be coming out of the other side of it and Pete is returning to work tomorrow. Since I last wrote he started with a cold which turned out to be worse than a normal run of the mill cold - which is really not suprising as we are talking about Pete here. On one of the 3 occassions that he was in hospital last week he passed out, I thought it was due to his wussyness with needles but apparantly it was due to a rather bad chest infection. He is close to finishing his course of antibiotics so the infection has now nearly cleared but not before he cracked his 2 weak ribs in a coughing fit. This is actually an added bonus, in one way, as he now has to lie stock still in bed all night or be in pain - great for me. His anemia now seems to be under control but we will know more when he has a blood test next week but so far he seems to be on top of it.

Not much else has been going on around here for the last month apart from a few wonderful visits with Mima and a great one with Sue. Most of Christmas has been sorted out over the internet this year as I have not really been able to go out shopping much. Just the worst bit to do now - food shopping. Really not looking forward to that.

Now for a HUGE catch up with HSMSHS.

Starting with todays. I really don't do tinsel in the traditional sense as I'm not that keen on it. However, I do have some black tinsel on my windowsill in the new room and some rather spiffing brown stuff that could sort of pass as tinsel on the tree in my front room.

Done and dusted the jobs a gud 'un.

Having a Whinge!

I'm in a moaning mood tonight and like Sue I think it is a good idea that I start making a record of what is happening health wise so that I can look back on it when I need to. Pete has been to the hospital today to get the results of his blood test from last week and to check on how his new drugs are going. The drugs (immunosuppressants (not sure this is how you spell it)) are going OK and he has to stay on the same dosage for the next few weeks and as they are not effecting his Liver at the moment the blood tests are now every 2 weeks instead of every week. They want him to start lowering the dosage of steroids down but he has told them that with the way he is feeling at the moment that there isn't a chance of that happening and it will just have to wait. The blood test taken last Tuesday says that his blood level is about 74 (should be 160) and the iron level is 3 (10 is very low). We know that it is now a LOT lower than that as he has was really ill on Thursday and Friday which will have effected his blood count with out a doubt. He was booked in for an iron infusion tomorrow BUT the hospital phoned late this afternoon to tell us that they could not get the iron until Monday !!! So now we have to wait and Pete has to suffer until then. He is going to see the Doc tomorrow to get a sick note for the rest of this week and next as there is no way he should be going in to work like he is.

Sorry that this post is a little depressing and boring but as I said this is more for me than anyone else. I will try and make the next post a little more up beat!