This is a post I've avoided writing... :-(

As I've mentioned before, expat life is pretty transient, much like the Armed Forces. I'm not sure I'll get used to it....and so another string of friends and acquaintances are leaving over the next few months. I get a bit cross when I start to get to know someone and they leave! That's you, Adamson/Fitzgerald/Yelland!

But it hurts a little more when a close friend is leaving. I'm still in touch with The Other Mrs. Mitchell, who is now in Germany ... hopefully a summer visit in our campervan! Miss you, darling!

This time round, it's Domestic Goddess who's off...you gorgeous woman and friend...she leaves in June to return to the UK, at least for a few years before the next adventure whisks her and her family off. I think she has become so accustomed to expat life that she's already looking forward to the next stint! A break in fresh and green UK first and then who knows!

I remember meeting her less than a month after we had moved here. I knew I'd love it here but I still felt very isolated and nervous about living in a completely different culture. So meeting her came at the right time!

I was beginning to look for a nursery for C and one of the ladies who has been here for years gave me her number. I called and we hit it off instantly. She took my son and I to the nursery, which was run by a lovely Yorkshire woman (also soon to return to UK I think...). We then met for a coffee in Azaiba and I met two other girls who would become firm friends along the line too (Mrs. K and The Other Mrs. Mitchell). And that, as they say, was that.

Despite only knowing each other for a couple of years now, we soon learnt to recognise when each other was feeling less than happy here. When she answers 'oh, you know, plodding along,' I knew she wasn't exactly bouncing with the joys of spring! We'd have a chat and a rant and then it all seemed a bit better, to me anyway, just to know, if nothing else, that I still had a genuine friend here.

She has a great knack of reducing me to tears too! That sounds awful! But I think we are similar emotional creatures and react in similar ways to certain things. All she has to do is listen, genuinely listen and I end up crying on her shoulder or ranting in her ear.

But we've had some fun too, honest! Kids parties, Wii games nights, glamorous dressing up for many Balls, less than glamorous dressing-down and roughing-it camping at the beach, grown-ups' birthday parties (a huge number 40 made out of carrot cake for Hubby!) ... I know that I could write so much here but I can't remember some of the things we have got up to ... which makes me sad as now is the time to remember everything now that she is leaving.

And I've avoided writing this to the point that DG has left and returned to UK shores. Maybe it's not sinking in and won't do until I get back to Oman and she's not around :'-(

On the upside, I am in the UK and we might go camp on their drive for a night (in the van) and to finish it off, we're off to see The Other Mitchells in Germany!

Some friends are just so worth hanging on to, no matter how far apart they are...

Wadi Bashing (well, more Wadi Tickling).

Husband writes: A typical Friday (Sunday) morning in the Mitchell household:

Wake up late. Leisurely breakfast in jammies. Mum and dad chill on the sofa, F draws quietly, C careering around the house on his toy car, shrieking at every corner.

"What shall we do today?"
"Shall we go out somewhere?"
"Yeah, ok."

Pause 20 minutes for another cup of tea.

"Where do you fancy going?"
"How about we go out for a picnic?"
"Sounds good."

Another 20 minutes pass.

"Where shall we go?"
"I read Wadi Fanja is nice."
"Ok, shall we aim to set off by 10?"
"Sounds good. What time is it now?"

"Errrrr. 11.30. And we have to be back in time for F to go for a party at 4!"

And so another leisurely morning turns into a mad panic. Kids who were quite happy playing around the house are dragged, complaining, upstairs to get dressed. The fridge is raided and dumped wholesale into the cool box. Rolls are taken out of the freezer: "They'll be fine by the time we get there". Drinks are packed and repacked.

"I don't want mango juice, I want strawberry!"
"But I don't like strawberry, I want apple!"

The tub of fresh pineapple dumps it's juice all over the kitchen floor. The salad leaks olive oil onto the biscuits. The tub of feta you were saving turns out to be more yoghurt than cheese.

At last, the swimming bag is packed, the boot is loaded with enough food for a 2 week expedition and the kids are strapped, still complaining that they were in the middle of something vital, into the back seat and the adventure begins.

And it turned out to be a lovely afternoon, despite the satnav taking us to the the local landfill site first (maybe I should have programmed it in conjunction with the guide book).

It's a little nerve wracking taking your lovely new car off road, but following in the tracks of some canny locals we were soon slip-sliding our way across the gravel beds of the wadi, wading axle deep as we crisscrossed the stream, and bottling out when it looked like 4L may be required. We found a nice spot right by the water and within minutes the kids had forgotten all about whatever essential item they'd been forced to leave behind in the playroom. A stream with warm water to paddle in and stones to play with beats My Little Pony and Lightning McQueen any day. Ok, well, it'll do for an hour or two.

It was just like one of the wonderful days out I remember from growing up in Scotland. Except we didn't have to wear raincoats while paddling, we didn't need hot pea and ham soup to warm us afterwards, and we didn't eat our sandwiches staring through the steamed up windows of the car.

But very reminiscent all the same. Although I did miss the thickly buttered doorsteps of home made fruit loaf (spiced please, Mum).

23°34'7.71"N
58° 6'56.27"E

First camping adventure

Well we've been on our first camping trip in Oman. It was touch and go for a while; the invitation to join some friends going down to Finns arrived a couple of weeks ago and we were very keen to go. Only snag was a complete lack of gear. With our container still at sea we had the sum total of one sleeping bag, a small BBQ and a torch with no batteries. Hardly conducive to a relaxing family weekend away.

Thankfully, with two days to spare our container arrived and a mad delve into the 180+ boxes was required to retrieve our camping gear. Having never been camping here before we adopted the belt and braces approach and decided to take EVERYTHING. By the afternoon prior to the planned departure we had a pile higher than the car stacked ready for packing. No problem, I'll just pop the roof bars on and most of it can be strapped on top leaving the boot to hold some extra jumpers (?!) and a spare cooler of beer.

Wrong. The roof bars didn't fit the new car. Several panic filled hours later, another 100km on the car and 20 rials in the pocket of a very resourceful Indian mechanic and I arrived home with my new roof bars. Which still didn't fit.

After an agonising hour of whittling down our kit and careful packing we at last set off, minus a camp table, some buckets and spades, extra blankets (what were we thinking?!) and, most importantly, the spare case of beer.

We arrived at the G's in Azaiba in time to see A loading the last of what appeared to be a dozen, extra large, coolers. If only we had the roof box..........

A final detour to the Sultan Centre to meet the others and after introductions we set off in convoy towards Tiwi. The drive is stunning, through narrow wadis into wide valleys, almost imperceptibly climbing to the plateau then the sudden winding drop-off down to Qurayyat and the coast. The sections of new road no doubt take away from the sense of adventure somewhat (and confuse the heck out of the satnav) but it does make the trip quicker.

A last few kilometers along the coast and finally we turn off the highway and onto the dirt. The tracks are well worn and we're not exactly forging a trail through undiscovered wilderness but it does get us away from the nearest civilisation and right down to the beach.

The setting is stunning. Behind us a couple of kms of flat, open desert backed by Al Hajar Ash Sharqi rising up to early 6000'. In front of us is the low rise of the sand dunes where we set up our shades or "establish the admin area" as the Other Mr. M. would put it. Half an hour later and we're feet-up with the first cold beer of the weekend. I was all for cracking the first tinny on arrival, but the cautionary tale of a previous camping trip was warning enough.

Legend has it that one happy camper hit the cooler on arrival and didn't stop. Several hours later, an irate wife tried to go to bed only to find the tent half assembled, the air beds un-inflated and her drunken husband face down under the sagging canvas, naked from the waist down. Apparently they haven't been back since.

And there we were. Nothing to do but go for a swim, relax in the reclining camp chairs (you have to take a little luxury with you), suck down another cold one, and watch the kids running wild. The beach was sandy to the waterline to mid-tide but as it went out further rock pools were revealed to the delight of the children. On the sandy portion, little crabs dug holes and built up the spoil in impressive castles to woo the lady crabs. The hermit crabs were everywhere and some of the less fortunate/slower ones were scooped up and collected together in a bucket to be prodded by little fingers. They were of course released back into the wild after suitable 'scientific' examination.

Finally it was time to get the BBQ going. We all had different techniques, with varying degrees of success. Gaz goes for a liberal spray of lighter fluid and is cooking in 20 minutes. A breaks out his secret weapon, the huge match-cum-firelighter and builds an impressive looking pyre. It takes a bit longer but with the satisfaction of not resorting to the 'cheats' way. I'm not sure what The Other Mr. M. actually did, but when he started it was broad daylight. By the time he was producing anything edible he was cooking by torchlight and poor Mrs. M. was well on the road to ruin with a couple of Pimms under her belt and no solids.

I used a little of each technique. I started by following the instructions on the briquet bag and built little piles of pyrotechnic perfection. Unfortunately after half an hour frantic fanning and blowing I was still no nearer to getting the snorkers on the go. A volunteered one of his super-lighters and soon there was a gentle smoldering but still not enough to cook by. A quick trip to borrow Gaz's petrol (hoping no-one would see me succumb to the dark side) and soon we were shoveling half cooked chicken kebabs and shoe-leather steaks down our necks - heaven!

Several beers later we gathered around the camp fire on the beach. Domestic Goddess had vast supplies of marshmallows and cookies which we toasted on sticks and made marshmallow sandwiches to the delight of everyone. The moon was full and amazingly bright so there was no brilliant starry night but the cool light over the ocean and desert was awesome.

The following morning brought more of the same. A leisurely breakfast (boiled eggs were nice but no match for the aromas coming from the bacon in A's pan) was followed by a refreshing swim in the Indian Ocean. Is it really early March? The Other Mr. M. had the older kids doing drill on the beach while the younger (and probably smarter) ones convinced A to drag them around the ocean in the inflatable dinghy. Lunch came and went between stints of castle building, hole digging, paddling, swimming and mad running about for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately, by 3pm we had to start packing up to head home. Just bad luck that the one day I had to work that week was the next day. Still, it was probably for the best as our cold beer had run out and we were down to the bottom of our food cool box. We set off home about 4pm, waving goodbye to the others as they went about their preparations for another BBQ and blissful night around the camp fire.

It was a fantastic introduction to camping on Oman. Unfortunately as we head towards April the rising temperature means the beach camping season is not with us for long. Hopefully we'll get at least one more weekend in before we're restricted to day tips and weekends in the mountains. Priorities now are to get the roof bars sorted and get hold of another couple of cool boxes!

For those of you on who want to look it up, we were at (roughly!): 22°57'12.10"N, 59°11'56.93"E

Culinary help required

One of the beauties of living somewhere new is the opportunity to try new things. One of the problems with living somewhere new is that sometimes you have no idea what these new things are.

The other day we were in the supermarket (LuLu's - true, I swear) and I started looking beyond the boring carrots, imported apples and extortionate broccoli. Casting my eyes over the Bitter Gourd, Wallar Pappadi and Banana Pindi I felt I should make more of an effort to branch out from the usual meat and two veg.

But where to start? Take the Snake Guard. Do I peel it, mash it or hang it from the front door as a warning to others? As for the Jackfruit, what the heck do you do with a prickly green medicine ball?

Google was very helpful regarding the aptly named Beli Fruit. "Useful for the treatment of diarrhea as well as constipation. Ripe fruit has a special laxative effect.". Forgive my ignorance, but if I'm a little 'irregular' should I take this or not? Judging the ripeness would appear to be critical. But where do I start with something I've never seen before?

Altogether, I noted the names of 32 fruits and vegetables I either didn't recognise at all, or which looked bizarrely different to their similarly named counterparts available in the UK.

Anyone who can help with hints or tips, please let us know.

It's in your interest. Everyone who comes to visit risks being served something potentially delicious and exciting but which turns out to resemble a cubed sea slug. 

Items of interest include:

Powtta, Tindly, Drum Stick, Suran, Kalam, Banana Flower, Chow Chow, Thibbatu, Mutter, Aravi, Anar, Tamarind (the whole thing, not just the jar of paste!).

Friends and coffee mornings, amongst other things

I've made a few friends that I'm sure (well, hoping!) will become quite firm. One Mum took me to the nursery as her son goes there. She invited me for a coffee in the shopping mall but I couldn't make it as we were getting my resident's card... But even if I don't make firm friends here for a while, there are always people around looking out for us and whom we can talk to.

The house still feels and looks like a holiday home. Our container has now been delayed until 1st March. Once we get our things that will be a bit better and more organised. But we don't know how long we will be here before we get moved to the complex. I can't just sit twiddling my thumbs not doing anything with the house for months. So we're just getting on with it and deal with it when it happens. So we went to a couple of furniture shops last night. It's amazing what you chose when you're in a sunny country! Even Husband loves the heavy, ornate wood and the sumptuous, garish colours! But priorities say that we need a dishwasher first and then a barbeque (yep, a priority!) then we can start adding things. We bought some crockery in the week finally, as we have to return the loaned dishes mid-March.

The garden is dry and needs working on. A few things are overgrown and I'm desperate for my secateurs. It will be sorted once I get my gardening things. Although it is a thankless task sweeping the leaves up from the olive trees. The front step needs sweeping every day. There is a road near here with just nurseries and garden centres on, at least ten! Apparently you can't get all you want in one place though!

OK, as alien as it is to me, we now have a maid. Well, I'm telling myself she's a cleaner who comes is a couple of days a week!
 
One of the ladies organised a coffee morning in the club on Thursday. There were quite a few women there - it was really nice actually and just the sort of thing I saw myself doing being out here! I'm going to the Quilt Group/sewing guild tomorrow, much to Husband's amusement. They meet once a month. I wasn't interested at first as I thought it would be the old women meeting place but apparently there is a broad spectrum, old, young, native and expat.

C's swimming has come on incredibly. His confidence doubled in a week. He is now jumping in and kicking up to the surface on his own. The main thing for me is that he is actually lying on his back - he hated doing that in the pool at home. F is doing so well too, goes without saying really...she loves trying to touch the bottom with her feet and swimming up like a mermaid!

We've had loads of trouble getting our landline sorted. It's just a farce actually. And very incredible that anything actually works here or gets done at all. I'll not go in to detail as I'm sure Husband will take the opportunity to rant. Don't ask him about the getting the new car either....

Not a great start to the day...no sleep...It. Is. Noisy. Where is that peaceful tranquil Oman I was expecting? This bit isn't! Our housing complex is next to the main road - our house's location could be worse though; we're adjacent and a bit further in, at least we not right by it (I'm being positive!) - we're not far from the airport and the Omani Air Force have been playing with their jets (well, not at midnight obviously). Oh, and Husband's snoring seems to have got louder...or maybe it echoes more around the tiled and marbled house!!!! I came back upstairs at 2am but set up the duvets in C's room. He has been unsettled, understandably. He's been up 2 or 3 times the last couple of nights, so I'm now paranoid he'll get up and wake Husband (who has an early start) and not see me on the floor. Then I'm worried F would come in looking for me and wake him. So really not much sleep to be had. Sod's law they both sleep through! I heard the prayers at 5am. It's very haunting yet it was a simple reminder that we are abroad. F heard them another time and we compared them to the church bells of Holy Cross back home that we could hear every Sunday.

I've been feeling a bit cooped up this morning. Hubby's straight in to a routine and we're in the house with no idea what to do with ourselves. We're tired as well I think.

First coffee in Oman...albeit Costa... We can walk to the local shopping centre from the house. The kids and I went to the local grocery shop where I had a Lee Evans moment...let me explain. I don't know what tour it was but Lee Evans was talking about women who take pushchairs to supermarkets and load up 2 weeks worth of shopping on it [I'm sniggering thinking about it...] You turn back and the buggy is on it's back and the child has his legs in the air...(can you see where this is going?) I'm loading shopping in the basket that is on the handle...I pop in the bottle of juice we need...'oooh, what's this other juice...great, look F, it includes 8 vitamins...' [creeeak...] I look back and there is Callan on his back looking quite horrified! Any other time, and if I hadn't have seen Lee Evans I would have been so embarrassed but I was p**sing myself today! It made me feel better. I have to keep smirking to myself.

There were lots of Omani children in the shopping centre. I smile at them but their mum or dad does not acknowledge it and seem to whisk them off. Yet they smile at my children. I'm imagining maybe, that they avoid the western woman...?

C had his hair touched again by a youngish man (late twenties I'd say) who was walking with his wife.

I'm on the step having a cup of Home. Still not at the stage I want to be! Am I restless? I'm still washing up. I'm still doing laundry. I'm still tidying up.

Wow. We've been watching the news on the snow at home. I'm so glad I'm not doing the school/nursery run. I crashed on the ice before on Lewes Road in Isfield. I couldn't bear to head out as it is now, I'd be scared stiff. Drive safely everyone!

The shops here shut about 1/2pm and reopen about 4pm. So Hubby had a few errands to do so headed out. He went to buy a washing machine, sort out the phone at Omantel and pay the car loan. He was out for 3 hours. Everything takes so long! I'm not sure if it is because of the paperwork or that the Omanis are just relaxed and disorganised!?

Because the packers back home packed my wardrobe quicker than expected, I had to wear my brown Fat Face cords today. Hot! (temperature, not level of womanly sexiness that I so often emit(?)). So I bought a couple of very long floaty skirts - very swishy - and some cotton tunics. A long one was 5 Omani Rials (about £8) and a short one was 3.5 OR (£5). Nice. Later I'm told that I should have haggled.

F was dancing to the Arabian music in the shop. Very cute. She has not questioned the women's dress and veils - she is very accepting. Probably a good approach to have here for so many things!

Women seem to wear different things here. Mostly black abayas with black headscarves, some with coloured scarves, we have seen one or two women wearing the abaya but with no headscarf, some abayas have been another colour or even patterned. One was a beautiful Chinese floral print all over on black. The younger girls, around 10 or 11 years old wear their own clothes with headscarves. I can't decide yet whether it is a case of 'anything goes' or the styles are according to age/family/staus/mother/married...I am embarrassed to say that it is certainly highlighting yet challenging my very little knowledge of Islam.

Still surreal...

Oh, my god - we really did make it our here in the nick of time what with the British weather...we wouldn't have made it for days if we had planned to leave any later!

I called school this morning - we decided that F would start on Saturday for the new week rather than one day and then the weekend (remember that the weekend here is Thursday and Friday!). I'm jotted my notes down for today on the front step...I'm not quite at the stage of wondering what the fuss has been about. Although I do have a cup of 'home', as Lolopo put it perfectly! So all is good...we're getting there. I'm just thinking about Neighbour - it's taken her some time to settle and I don't think she's there yet.

The garden needs doing...it is dry!...there are olive leaves everywhere....but some beautiful pink flowers...the tiniest bird keeps landing on some of the orange flowers (don't know the name). The bird seemed no larger than a wren and was bluey black in the sunlight.

Although when Hubby asked me on the first night what I thought, the first word was 'isolated' but this seems a slightly harsh word to describe it. I'm making the most of the relative peace and tranquillity as it will all kick off eventually as soon as I get thrown in to the reality of it all, what with driving, school runs etc (oh, and finishing my Uni assignments! - this serves as a reminder to me!)

Well, I am being reminded of the removal men's efficacy...I have only one pair of cool trousers! Rubbish. Again, that will teach me to be more organised at removal time (hopefully that won't be for a LONG time - within Oman or back home!) It does of course mean a shopping trip. City Centre (name of a mall) has lots of lovely clothes shops. It has an unusual (ok, maybe unexpected in my eyes) selection of shops from stores that sell abayas (I never thought you could vary a black gown in quite so many ways!) to western style clothing stores (very tight tops on store mannequins with outline of nipples showing...!) to lingerie shops incidentally called Woolworths...I wonder if they would have survived in the UK selling just frilly undies?) Plenty of Omani women were in the shop. I'm not entirely sure they are as restrained and restricted as I believed they would be. Having said that, Neighbour said that you can't wear a bikini or swimming costume on a public beach, the smaller beaches are ok as there are never many people here. I wonder, however, relating this to what I've read in the Resident's Guide to Oman, that you can wear a bikini or swimming costume but be aware that you will be stared at.

First purchase for the house - a lovely red vase for the front room (M&S!).

First full day

Husband was due to restart his course tomorrow but he was asked to go today. I met next door - they have been here a couple of months I think. She said it was a process of slowly settling and found it quite tough at times. Her youngest daughter is beside herself with being here so that's contributed to the slow settling. I think it is best to do these things the younger the children are - this opportunity definitely came up at the right time for us.

Bear has not been too happy with the heat. And this is their winter! (Although it has been quite warm by all accounts) Hopefully it's just a case of her acclimatising. Will she be ok for school tomorrow? As the day wore on this was not the case! She definitely won't be going to school! She seemed to just get more hyperactive the more tired she became! We made it to the beach in the evening thought and this seemed to focus them both. We all paddled in the Indian Ocean! How lush!!!

We've had the first case of hair touching! Bear had hers touched when she went out with Husband yesterday. When we went out earlier today, Pops had his touched twice. It was almost absent minded. The ladies were just walking past us in the opposite direction and held out their hand to rub the hair between their fingers. It was so sweet and he didn't seem to notice.