THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS Theme

A poetry day

I am having a real poetry day today. Mik bought me the complete works of John Keats for a birthday one year and he reminded me last night that I have never read it - but that is not quite true I have picked it up a couple of times and it not the sort of thing one reads from cover to cover, and quite honestly I find it quite hard work as the language is so old, one really has to study it rather than simply read it. So today I decided to make some time for poetry and inspired by Keats and some French friends of mine with a lust for life and each other I found this one...

Celine & Lorenzo dance on a Saturday night

Dancing twirling laughing nymphs
Lunging at life from up high on a plinth
Telling the world that they better take care
For Lorenzo and Celine are making it here
To take it all for what it is worth
And make revelry dance and be wild in the mirth
For life is for love and the world is the stage
And we make it all now for tomorrow we age

Mik, Celine and Laurent - aka Lorenzo dancing on a Saturday night.

A few days rest in Oman - the story

I thought I better give ayou a bit of a story to go with the pictures.

We had a wonderful couple of days rest in Oman and made sure it was not a wirl wind. Actually the day before Mik arrived the wind whipped up and there was quite a sand storm, but it settled by the afternoon of the first day and we managed to see some rays by the pool. That morning we went for a walk down the beach, and as you can see there was a bit of surf. It reminded me a lot of the North Taranaki coast, except the tide was a lot shorter. It was nice just to wander along the beach with our shoes off and jeans rolled up. We both realised how much we miss the sea. Still it is lovely here in the Flemish country side, but there is something special about the sea for those that grew up by it. A lot like that mountain of ours too ... for those who don't what I mean here he is...





Taranaki from Paul G's Yacht.








The next day we checked out and went for a drive to Muttrah and old Muscat and mananged some bargaining in the market place, which they call the souq. We found the silver and gold souq too, and were aghast at the beautiful jewlery, which I am totally going to have to introduce Ronaye to when we get back again - sorry Glenn...

It was a magic blue day and we were planning to also spend the afternoon by the pool but we got back to the hotel and they had closed the pool area for a special valentines day party, which one had to buy tickets for. So we crashed the Hyatt instead and sat by their pool for the afternoon and enjoyed the spa pool in the evening. The retaraunt by the pool turned into a Japanese restaraunt by night so we enjoyed an awesome meal - there we were, a couple of mad kiwis in the middle east eating sushi and sahimi and drinking New Zealand Sauvingnon Blanc.

A few days rest in Oman

Hundreds attend global warming protest

I learned something new today...which is always good for the soul

My taste in music is broadening ... it turns out Gorillaz is a virtual band - I never realized there was such a thing, and if you you tube/google 'Gorillaz live' you can see they perform live as animated characters also - but they haven't toured since 2002 by the looks. If you want to know more about Gorillaz click here, which is a Wikipedia site and then I read Amy MacDonald's blog today and she said she tried to correct Wikipedia's article on her and they told her to stuff off - how bizarre! click here to see her comments on the article about her on Wikipedia - oh dear wiki was always my first line of on line knowledge until know.

I do think she is doing some good stuff too - my faith in new music is restored... see http://www.amymacdonald.co.uk/ .

I also saw a very cool movie today - because I got sick again and this time quite terribly so I had to stay in my room all day - Mike knows all about it for sure, he listened to my whining for two days now - but the movie was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, adapted from a 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I enjoyed it. It is a saga but worth the time, if you have it... click here to see the tralier

Gorilaz - 19-2000

And this was the first one that attracted me.

Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood

I have been really enjoying these guys lately. I really like the fact that they are always animated, and sometimes their pieces are about the poetry, sometimes about the rhythm and sometimes the melody. They never do just one formula - I like that - it's varied.

A trip to the field - Mukhaizna

Back again. Well another two weeks have gone by and it has a bit of a whirlwind this time.





I got ot the field this week for the first time and it was a different world. The field is massive - there is two and the whole complex is about 30 km by 10 km. I did take some photos, on a collegue's camera - I do not have them yet, but here are a few google images for your interest.

Living quarters

Beam Pump

Somewhere in the field

It was as flat and brown as the eye could see. It looked to me like the blue sky on the horizon was the sea but the further you drove the sea never appeared. The temperature range was large. About 5 degrees in the morning to the mid to late 30's during the day. That's winter - in summer the days are in the mid to late 40's.

You can read little bit more about the project if you click here.

On another subject - I have been quiet of late as I am in a different hotel this time and the "high Speed internet" is totally ridiculous. Thank god for all the movies I downloaded onto my laptop when I was at home, as I simply can not download anything with the speeds they have here. I can not even listen to a continous sample of music on i-tunes, and it takes about 10 minutes to download one song. At home we are getting a whole album in that time. So as you can tell I have been a little frustrated on the entertainment front. On advise from one's ITlearned husband, I did a speedtest and found I was getting just over 200 kb/s - dial up is faster than that!!!!



Anyway, 14 days down, 7 to go until my beloved comes and we can spend some time in the sun.