Happy New Year

Not a wish, but a fact. ¡Qué bien!

Now then, Fate, God & Mammon, though not necessarily in that order.

Part the First

Last year was... interesting... For me, pivotal, I think. I'm a slow study, but I usually get there eventually. And now, I'd say I'm there. First year of rest of life. This year should be... interesting... !

Last year? Seven or eight months of sorrow, worry, frustration, anger and loss inextricably entwined with new certainties, closer relationships and budding contentment, lived in an atmosphere of deepening economic gloom and W.T.F?!?!?! social uncertainty. And it was a good year for the air industry too...

By the end of August, I'd quietly reached the point where I wouldn't touch a newspaper, period; or read any novel unless I'd read it before (ideally at least three times) and could therefore trust it to soothe - or unless it came in a reassuringly ChickLit candy-coloured jacket with an improbably thin and perky cartoon Twenty-Something nipping across the front with Betty Boo eyelashes, Cherry Lips lips and a designer carrier bag, blithely confident that her cut-out-perfect Jackie O bouffant hairdo would protect her if the huge, embossed alphabet-soup-style title and author's name dangling above her should tumble and fall - as if it possibly could!!

But October brought good things, fresh hopes, new energy. November did not disappoint. And December: December was wonderful. Perfect. Perfect! And now we've got a shiny new year to play with, and I feel so good about it. I would say, 'Bring it on!', but let's not tempt that stuff that goes around, just in case it decides to come around again.

Part Deux

I mean. 2010. How many grim events and developments can you actually fit into one year? Boom-time for examining entrails and planetary alignments, given that neither Jehovah nor Mammon have quite the cred they used to.

I'm leaning towards Zen by now, though this may be a symptom of advancing years. History presents several got-it-alls who arrived in their middle years, looked around and chucked it in (a variation on 'Turn on, tune in, drop out.', I reckon) for something less-is-more; or at least discovered a hole in their lives that wealth and power could not fill. (I don't think I've reached this stage yet!)

Even so, there's Siddhārtha Gautama, the prince who founded Buddhism.

And Chandragupta Maurya and grandson Ashoka the Great, first emperors of a united India
with gratuitous photo of Shah Rukh Khan in the 2001 film. (Any excuse!)

Ooh! And Spain's own Felipe II. Only known in Britain as Mary Tudor's husband Philip, this is the man who had El Escorial built - palace and monastery.

Somewhere to get away from it all.

I'd love to believe in God and an afterlife, especially now that people I love have started popping their clogs like there's no tomorrow - which unfortunately, I believe... sigh...

However, I've always liked this poem by Arthur Hugh Clough,

"THERE is no God," the wicked saith,

"And truly it's a blessing, For what He might have done with us

It's better only guessing."

"There is no God," a youngster thinks,

"or really, if there may be, He surely did not mean a man

Always to be a baby."

"There is no God, or if there is,"

The tradesman thinks, "'twere funny If He should take it ill in me

To make a little money."

"Whether there be," the rich man says,

"It matters very little, For I and mine, thank somebody,

Are not in want of victual."

Some others, also, to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it, Think there is none, when they are well,

And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath

The shadow of the steeple; The parson and the parson's wife,

And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,

So thankful for illusion; And men caught out in what the world

Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost everyone when age,

Disease, or sorrows strike him, Inclines to think there is a God,

Or something very like Him.

Ah well. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Of course, the likes of Ashoka and the Buddha are probably outnumbered by The Men Who Would Be King, Emperor or President for Life. And women who want shoes! shoes! shoes! (or ingots) and are prepared to take the rough:

Mr Philippines 1965-86 and Mr Tunisia 1987-2011

for the smooth:

Anyway, although I like shoes almost as much as the next girl, and wouldn't object to having a couple of ingots in the bank, 2010 was a year made for stocktaking, and I did. And 2011 shows signs of being a year for building, and possibly a little light tree-shaking. At least in our small corner of the multiverse.

P.S.

In his (1966) speech Leary stated:

“

Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.

”

Leary later explained in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks,

“

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. 'Drop out' suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'. So now we know! P.S. I just came across an old blog post, from September 2008. What a difference a couple of years make.

a shared culture of peace

In April 2008, the Fundación Cultura de Paz, Foundation for a Culture of Peace organised an international meeting at the Monastery of Motserrat, just outside Barcelonia, to discuss the role of religion in the building of peace.
Reuters photo: (L-R) Mohammad Khatami, former Iranian President and President of the Foundation for Dialogue Among Civilisations, Spaniard Federico Mayor Zaragoza, president of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and former director-general of UNESCO, and the Abbot of Montserrat Josep Maria Soler ... at the signing ... of the Declaration of Montserrat.

Not long ago, a friend and I were discussing - ok, arguing about - God; and whether the divine might exist in any of the perceived - or official - forms; given that every society and culture since the beginning of human records has identified and worshipped 'the divine'; and, nowadays you can find both illiterates and college professors who believe that there is a God, or there isn't a God, or they don't know, and (or) they don't much care.

Whatever the case may be, I was struck by this statement, which I came across on the Abadia (abbey?)de Montserrat website, in this Final draft for a Declaration of Montserrat on religions and the building of peace.

As stated in the Alliance of Civilizations Report and others (2) we must enhance efforts to bridge the divides between religions and cultures through dialogue and concrete action, because religions and cultures are intertwined. We must overcome the misperceptions, stereotypes, biased language and concepts reproduced by the media and frequently echoed by irresponsible leadership. Religions must stay together to build a future where religions co-exist harmonically and work together for a common future. We must challenge attitudes that spread the appearance of links between religion and violence, extremism and even terrorism. (my italics)

Towards the end of the document, there is this paragraph:

We are convinced that a culture of dialogue, alliance, non-violence and peace must be

built with full respect to the human rights, the UN Charter and the rule of law. Such a

shared culture of peace needs to give creative expressions to the teaching of the world’s religious traditions: we are all responsible for one another with a sense of otherness and brotherhood. In political terms, the only security that is practically possible and morally sound is “shared security”.

That works for me.

"Love your neighbour. Do good to those who hate you." takes some doing, sometimes,

but we could start with "Do no harm." or "Live and let live."

Maybe not buy any newspaper that routinely prints emotive, self-righteous headlines in five centimetre capitals, and devotes more space to photos than to words (overcome the misperceptions, stereotypes, biased language and concepts reproduced by the media and frequently echoed by irresponsible leadership).

..........................Then again, not all the broadsheets are on the side of the winged spiritual beings of your choice.......... Phooey - better step out of my nice cosy Guardian comfort zone....... I have got to stop thinking about the big stuff on Sunday afternoons........

..ahem.. Where was I? Oh yeah..

Maybe try the food, or the music, or the movies, or the books.

Buy the jewellery.

Adapt the fashions.

Copy the decor.

Maybe let the kids play together.

Wave and smile.

Talk to each other in the queue at the check-out

(enhance efforts to bridge the divides between religions and cultures through dialogue and concrete action).

All the big stuff!

The FCP put it this way.

Eso es.

¡Ojalá! - as they say here in Spain - a word derived, like many Spanish words, from Arabic, and meaning - I wish!

A Big One

I'm going to be 50 this week. Coo! Who'd have thought it? I'm chuffed to bits with myself. Here I am, back in Europe again, living happily ever after with my darling husband, while my darling son is out there making his own life - and coming to see us at Christmas (next month!) - and we're close enough to all my extended family for us all to get to know one another properly again after so many years on opposite sides of the planet. My genuine antique goblet runneth over.

Of course, there's one small wrinkle. Actually, more to the point, there are several. Just like everyone else of Advancing Years, I go merrily along, living this facinating life as I always have, and not really changing, except, one would hope, in greater wisdom, humour and compassion - absolutely darlings! - and then this woman appears, reflected in a shop window or the perspex wall of a bus shelter. She's not remarkable in any way, just a solid, rather pudding-faced middle-aged woman, like all the others I've passed in the street since I was a little girl. And it's me. How strange.

In that last year in Dubai I frequently felt a great deal older than I looked - What am I saying? When you feel like that, that's how you look too! - but these days, I look my chronological age, and feel - not younger exactly - just more...................... me. And 'me' is quite relaxed and optimistic at base, with a great deal of yabadabadoo thrown in.

They say our character shows in our face - cue comforting comments on laughter lines. But it seems to me that as gravity and biology do their work, softening some contours and nudging others into relief, so character - or perhaps, more accurately, our inner life - becomes harder to read: perhaps, as we grow older, we internalise more, and show less.

Certainly, riding on the Metro every day, I see the vivid play of thoughts and feelings on younger faces - especially children with their parents, teenagers with their friends - all eager to share, and be acknowledged - and the more closed faces of older people. Like me. Often, of course, faces are closed to preserve mental space in the physical press of a railway carriage, and the mind is elsewhere, empty, resting - or at work on some responsibility - and the closed look has as much to do with fatigue and the preservation of energy or vision as anything else.

The clues are there in the eyes, the shoulders, and the angle of the head. And in the clothes, too. Even work clothes. Little ones wear what their parents dress them in - even if they've been consulted; their parents' tastes still prevail to some extent. Teenagers often adopt peer uniform: jeans, black, the current fashion - perhaps subconsciously disguising the extraordinary surge of mental and emotional power, the overwhelming sense of 'I' that informs every waking moment as they make that transition from childhood to adult life.

By the time you're 50 - and 60 - and 70 - even if you don't have much - or any - budget for clothes, you know what you like, or what suits you; and 'suits' has a lot more to do with the mental landscape than with the more obvious physical landscape (-slide...?!). And the way you generally feel about life, and handle what comes, is there in the set of your shoulders, the curve of your spine. That's a whopping generalisation of course - completely disregarding genetics, lifestyle and health - but there's a lot of truth in it.

Anyway. We're off to the Archaeology Museum - my choice - to check out some ancient Etruscans. Like gravitating to like.....

But I can't possibly be 50 this week, because my dad is only 49¾. Has been for years.

And you can't argue with your dad, now can you?

A la Recherche des Taxis Perdus

I find that the process of leaving feels similar to the process of settling. Our imminent departure re-invests the now familiar landscape and personnel of daily life with all the vivid detail it had in the early years; storing faces and places, stirring memories and inviting comparisons. We’ve been here almost thirteen years, and in a few weeks we’ll be gone. Coo!

When we first arrived here from England, everything was new, strange, and full of promise, and I soaked up all the details of my new environment. Riding through Karama, Satwa and Jumeirah with a tourist map open beside me, en route for the personal landmarks of Habibi’s office, Habibibaba’s school, the British Council, Magrudy’s, Jumeirah Beach and Creekside Park, I took in the grid layout of compounds and apartment buildings, punctuated by pastel-toned villas plonked on sandy lots like shopping bags dumped on a kitchen floor; I squinted at street signs, perplexed by the incomprehensible numbering system, and intrigued by the complexities of names like ‘Al Ittihad Street’, ‘Al Wasl Road’ and ‘Khaled bin Al Waleed Street’. What did ittihad and wasl mean? Who was Khaled bin Al Waleed? What a sense of achievement came from getting my mouth around these, and being understood! Then there was the next level, learning the ‘real’ names, all based on landmarks or a concentration of activity: Irani Hospital Road, Bank Street, the plant souk, computer souk, Bidet Roundabout, Budgie Roundabout, Defence Roundabout, Satwa Racetrack etc. One day, to my surprise, the straggling web of one-way streets resolved itself into a mental map of a familiar town that was quite lot smaller than it had first appeared – the way a film always seems much shorter, the second time you watch it.

Since then, of course, the town has expanded into a city, and outgrown pet-names. Ramada Roundabout has become a crossroads, Abela Supermarket, whose memory lingered as Old Abela Supermarket through a couple of incarnations – Habitat & a Natural Health Supermarket – conjures up a time and atmosphere, rather than a T junction on Al Wasl Road, and as for Defence Roundabout, notable for its distinctive cruciform, and a definite military……. absence….., that’s Intersection 2!

We’ve also seen the closure of the small private cab companies and one-man operations, and the development of a centrally controlled, metered taxi network employing thousands of men to work twelve-hour shifts. I’m a big fan of road-worthy, air-conditioned vehicles, and most of the drivers are nice guys, but you don’t get the best out of a driver who’s underpaid, tired and stressed. I used to sit in the front seat because I like an unobstructed view and I like to chat, but these days, it’s more like riding shotgun. Unfavourite experiences on a 10-12 lane highway at 120 km/ph: tailgating; ‘precision’ overtaking, mobile phone use; the driver with one hand on the wheel and the other supporting his eyelids; having the radio on really loud to keep him awake.

Ah, I remember the olden days.

Taxis were safer back then, when they couldn’t get out of second gear without the engine falling out. I remember acetate silk roses, velour dashboard covers and gilded plastic tissue box covers offsetting the general grime of the interiors. Wind-down air-conditioning. Concave seating. Maroon vinyl and transparent plastic. Grey sheepskin on the back sill. The family photos tucked behind the sunshade. I remember conversations with men who’d been here for years, about home, family, and other taxi drivers (‘Too many Irani’ confides the Afghan; ‘Too many Afghani.’ the Iranian grins.). I remember the richly textured olfactory adventure of hot rubber, hot oil, ancient vinyl, carbon monoxide, mildew, My Shaldan in Citron, Rose or Strawberry, and the accumulation of years one man’s sweat, cigarettes and lunchbreaks. Vive la nostalgie…….

The Growing Season 3

I'm starting kabuki with another year group this term. Last year, we took Shibaraku as our text, touring an adapted version to The Japanese School and to Zayed University. Shibaraku is pure entertainment, and as such was a very good play to cut our teeth on, given that I was teaching from scratch.

This year, with that experience behind me, and a bigger class of students who have just done impressive work on The Merry Wives of Windsor, I want to look at something more substantial, and see if we can get closer to an authentic interpretation.

The trouble is that although kabuki is a feast for the senses, with its immaculate sets; elegant, often sumptuous, costumes; and music which, once European ears begin to attune to Asian musical scales and instruments, is utterly beguiling; many of its plots are rooted in the implacable samurai code which put duty to one's clan before everything else (or on what can happen as that code becomes a anachronism in an evolving society) ; and many of the plays involve heartbreaking sacrifices and deliberate cruelty. Getting a handle on the so-called 'aesthetic of cruelty' through which, to quote the Japanese Theatre scholar, James Brandon, 'violence and pain are made beautiful by abstraction' is quite daunting.

Moreover, in the 19th Century when Japan was in painful transition between feudalism and no-one-knew-what , (and my current read was written) the social and economic disruption of the time was reflected in its theatre. (Someone must have written a book on the type of theatre produced by cultures and societies in crisis. On the one hand there's the escapist fare of 1930s Britain, and 1940s cinema in the US;: and on the other there's the dark, dark humour and satire that is the crookedly painted grin of near-despair - Revenge Tragedy in 17th Century England; Kabuki in 19th Century Japan (tho' K. started in the 17thC.); the famous inter-war (Now there's a happy term!) cabaret of Berlin; Absurdism in post-war (Uhuh) France; Agit-Prop in Apartheid South Africa. It seems to me that what you get depends largely on whether the centre is holding, and people just need time out from being brave and all doing their bit towards a perceived common goal; or whether everything is in flux, and no-one - but no-one - really knows how it's going to end.) What kind of theatre - movie-making - novels - will the first quarter of the 21st Century produce, I wonder - in Europe - Asia - the US - Africa - .........the Global Village...........

!!!!!ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!

Excuse me as I get back on my chair.....

I'm currently working my way through Kabuki, Five Classic Plays in search of the right text. The day before yesterday, I read Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani (Ichinotani Futaba Gunki) which is a classic (yup, like it says on the cover!) play in which a general, in accordance with the implied wishes of his lord, sacrifices his son to preserve his honourable enemy........ Yes. OK. And it is a wonderful play.

AND..........., Brandon says in Five, sacrificing one's child for one's lord is dramatic fiction; there is no historical instance of it in Japan. Strange, then, that it occurs in so many plays, with such poignancy. The samurai class didn't watch kabuki, preferring the more refined Nō and kyogen comedies. The audience for kabuki's samurai stories was the merchant class of Edo (Tokyo) Osaka and Kyoto, in a period of prolonged peace in which the samurai class was becoming more and more irrelevant, and soft. This urban audience's concerns (JB again!) centred on earning a living, seeking out pleasure and love, and being part of the exciting and ever-changing bustle of activity that was life in the great cities. Maybe their fictional samurai were no more realistic than our movie pirates - who apparently never went in for making people walk the plank (I know!) and also, more plausibly perhaps, didn't generally look much like Johnny Depp , either. Good grief!













Damn! Couldn't get a bigger pic!







The Greeks had their cathartic tragedies and ribald comedies. The Romans enjoyed the comedies, but chucked tragedy in favour of blood sports. Hollywood gives us Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, and plenty of reasons not to move into Elm Street, or name your children Jason, Freddie, Damien or Carrie. Hmm. The Human Race, funny haha or funny peculiar?

Ooh! Ooh! BBC World is carrying a story on a comedy, 'Mein Fuhrer', made as a means of helping Germans explore how and why so many Germans followed Hitler. Brave man. Spiegel online has an article entitled Fun with the Fuhrer Wow. A German blogger has a trailer which she introduces as The real true story about Adolf Hitler! Helge Schneider is Adolf Hitler. Hilarious comedy about the most disgusting person in history, besides G.W.Bush. If you speak German, the trailer is on YouTube.

I don't speak German, so I can't offer an opinion, except on the place of comedy in our lives. I digress, but it's an interesting variation on the use of humour as a coping mechanism when we're faced with the unspeakable. In 2003, when I was in London, there was a satire, The Madness of George Dubya playing. I wish I'd seen it. At the time, I suspected it might do me good, but I was still so incredulous, bitter and nauseated by the actions and attitude of this arrogant moronic pawn of the dark powers of your choice, that I wanted to howl and vomit every time he appeared on TV. So I didn't go. Shame.

End of digression!

Then I read 'Love Letter from the Licensed Quarter' (Kuruwa Bunshō) a comedy about a lovers' tiff, at the end of which, his family takes him back and pays off all his debts, so that he can buy out her contract from the brothel (in the 'licensed quarter') where she - as a matter of honour - is earning her keep. Then they live happily ever after. After that I went out for a walk in the uncomplicated evening air.

Yesterday I read 'The Scarlet Princess of Edo' (Sakura Hime Azuma Bunshō) .

(Here, scarlet does not have the same connotations as in the West, but refers to the akahime or traditional 'scarlet robe' costume, which denotes a royal or aristocratic lady...... although Princess Sakura does fall all the way to the bottom of the pile before being restored to her original status.....just after the final curtain.........). Written in 1817, it reflects all the - um - joys - of blind transition. Adultery. Betrayal. Cruelty. Murder. Forced prostitution. Also Honour. Courage. Perseverance. Uxorial Devotion. Filial Piety. Paternal Pride. Maternal Tenderness. Self-Sacrifice. Very Nice Kimonos. Great Hair. Extraordinary Sets. All six acts of it.

After that (Your Honour) I went to Mall of the Emirates, looked at some very handsome window displays, succumbed to temptation in the Virgin video sale, and went to Cafe Paul for a piece of perfect apricot pie (perfect) and a pot of that beautiful Paul blend tea. Feeling better.

I suppose what makes these plays rather overwhelming in combination is the impression of being plunged into a completely alien culture, through a medium that speaks to the mind and emotions through all the senses. Of course, my experience of reading these plays now, having seen DVDs, heard recordings, and been involved in production - though not of any of these - is quite different from the first time I read some of them, a little over a year ago, with only a couple of Internet video clips for reference, but James Brandon presents these transcripts of performance with tremendous attention to visual and aural detail, as well as explaining the mechanics and techniques, and the underlying themes and ideas.)

The specific dilemmas and conflicts, then, and the strategies and solutions the characters resort to, might spring from an unfamiliar social code, and be expressed in an unfamiliar theatrical framework, but the relationships, the tension between individual desire and duty to anotheer party, and the emotional territory of adult life are essentially the familiar; and the whole piece plays out inside your head. Strong stuff.

Today I was transcribing my notes and doing a detailed analysis on my laptop (which is currently working - yay! - though it declines to connect to the Internet. Not a problem today, cos I've got a stack of Limewire downloads, and I put the more soothing ones on continuous shuffle, with the odd bopper like Walking on Sunshine in the mix, so I could have a little bounce now and again, to break things up a bit. After three hours of this, though I had had ENOUGH, and went out for a walk with my camera. No doubt a jog would have been a great deal more beneficial but Ha!

See Peas/Primordial Slime/Potato entry from this morning, and neighbour's veggie patch from the first bit of my walk. This is the rest of it.




















3 o'clock leaf shadow



















A proper palm tree - not one of those straggly California weeds! Note the irrigation tubes - not indigenous. (I mean the palm tree!)



















Close-up - natural palm fibre matting



















room for expansion















pampas grass on bad hair day
















umbrella plants with new growth sprouting straight up
















new blossom















mature blossom















The Trouble with Tribbles....




















is their tendency to spread, climb,















and multiply.















Which is where our garden maintenance guys come in. Almost everything planted in The Gardens is quick-growing, and quick-spreading. All the groundcover plants have world domination built into their cells; and what looks like savage and thoughtless pruning is actually appropriate for the vigorous - nay rampant - growth habits of our potential urban jungle. I honestly thought those cheerful little yellow things would suffocate everything around them, but, five years on, everything seems to co-exist quite successfully. But the tribbles, and most of their groundcover buddies are on my list of what not to plant when we find our personal pocket paradise in Spain. Jajaja!




















There you go, picture perfect lollipop trees. In a couple of months, these will be splendid again, with their red and gold leathery shields reaching for the sky and dotting the grass with colour.

Perspective

Habibi and I have one decent set of eyes between us.

Downside: he needs glasses for distance, and I can't read a thing without my specs.

Upside: he doesn't worry about the big picture, and I don't sweat the small stuff.

Way to go.

Home thoughts

I blog too often and too long. This is because I have no life. I admit it. It's ok: I'm used to it!

I have a very interesting job and working with kids in their teenage years is completely absorbing. But at the same time, I don't think it's ethical to blog about my job, either with anecdotes about individuals, or with the goss on the workings of the school. I'll track the Delhi project, which we're very excited about; and one of these days I'll get round to stills from the Kabuki performance recordings, but I haven't asked permission to put students' pictures up here (and I don't particularly wish to direct their attention here, either), so I try to choose pics that are interesting, but not of identifiable individuals.

BUT if I don't blog about work, I'm stumped really, because that's where I put all my energy, and where I get my satisfaction. (Hence all the amateur psychology, philosophy and politics!)

The bottom line is that I've never really adapted to life here, and by now I've used up all the devices I've invented along the way to maintain the illusion that I live here. I don't. I live in my head. In the past. In contact with, and thoughts of, distant family. In an imagined future. In hopes of a different life in a different place. And increasingly, in the blogosphere, where other people also live at least part of their lives. Thank Google! Two weeks in Spain and nine days in Jordan have kept me afloat since this time last year, first steps in the direction of our new/old life. It has surprised me that I am, ultimately, so inflexible, because when I encountered this in someone else - my mother-in-law - I found it both very sad, and very hard to comprehend. Now I understand a little better.

My father- and mother-in-law, and all their brothers and sisters, were born into a Durham mining community in the far north of England. However, by the time Habibi was born, the pit was pretty well worked out. Soon enough, his father got a new job at another, expanding pit, in Yorkshire, about a hundred miles south. Once he was secure, the family moved down to join him. At six years old, Habibi found himself in a new village, and a new school where the local kids thought he was Chinese, because his accent was so alien to them. By the time I met him, he was a Yorkshireman, though his parents, of course, retained their 'Geordie' accent, which I adore!

For his father, I guess that a change of pit wasn't so drastic, particularly as lots of Durham miners moved to 'Yorkshire Main'. The work was the same, the social life was the same, and he had an allotment where he grew the best - the absolute best - onions I've ever tasted. Legendary, they were! (And 'were' is the operative word, unfortunately, as he gave up his allotment years ago.) So he has been quite content with his lot - and his allotment - I think. A hard-working, sociable, family man, with a legitimate bolt-hole whenever he wanted a bit of peace.

But when I met Habibi-mama, who was lovely - so kind, determined and creative - but so shy, it was a different story. After twenty five years, she still missed 'home', her mother (who lived to be 93!) and her sisters, and had never settled in the 'new' place. She was a quiet dynamo who redecorated the house herself when it was due, who made all the costumes for years for the local Majorettes (marching band) who competed all over the country, and wore sashes absolutely laden with medals. (Think of the piles of coins in a penny arcade machine - that kind of density.) And when the sewing machine was put away, she knitted. ('She never stopped!' Habibi says!) That's where he gets his talents from; the difference is, of course, that he belongs to a working class generation that had choices, and he got to go to university; his mother didn't (Nor, I think, would she have wanted to. But that's another matter.) Anyway, this lovely, lovely woman (maker of world-class pease pudding, and source of our scrumptious wedding cake recipe) got right on with being a good wife, mother and grandmother, and doing her bit in the community she had been transplanted to; but she never put down roots, never made close friends, always missed 'home' - and should have had shares in the tobacco industry! I couldn't quite understand how she could live twenty-five years in a place, raise three children, be so essential to the functioning of the community, and not feel at home, at ease. Didn't all that constitute a life? A home?

Before and after we met, Habibi and I moved around England quite a bit, what with studies and jobs. Once we'd been together a while, I realised that I had a pattern (nothing as organised as a strategy!) of working hard at nesting and networking to begin with, so that we were part of the landscape by the time we'd been in a place six months, and part of the neighbourhood in two years: taking it for granted - having adapted to local conditions - and just getting on with life.

When, after we'd been here half a dozen years, and Dubai was still an uncompromisingly exotic dancer smack in the centre of my field of vision, instead of an eccentric uncle in the background, I thought first that it was the place, and then that it must be me. I know now that it's both, with a generous measure of particular circumstances thrown in!

Isn't it ironic, though, that I and my mother-in-law, apparently so different in temperament, and literally a generation apart in terms of opportunities and options, should turn out to have this major element in common: we do best in our particular soil; we make an adequate show in the wrong part of the garden, but our roots are shallow. I'd really better get out of here before I run to seed!

Voy a espańa la semana próxima! Voy trabajar con unas gallinas. Jajajaja! (Spanish laughter! =D)

Ever-decreasing circles

My 'I like' blog of a few weeks ago started out as a parenthesis illustrating something else entirely, namely reasons for a two-decade aversion to PCs and the Internet. But I was having such a good time with my raindrops-on-roses party (subject: all the things the PC/Internet is not, does not and can not.) that I dumped the other stuff and kept going (something I'm pretty good at, as we know.)

Here's the aversion bit.

For years I have described myself as either technomoron or technophobe, depending on whether I was going for laughs or accuracy, but essentially, I DON'T LIKE COMPUTERS VERY MUCH, though I liked the concept of Elle's cute pink Legally Blonde Mac. (In practice, don't like Macs even more than I don't like PCs - horrible keyboard.)

Basically Habibi got his first computer in 1990, and installed it in the spare bedroom. From then on, he would retire upstairs most evenings, only emerging hours later, weary, dazed, and smiling sheepishly, to collapse into bed. I tried not to kick up about something that made Habibi happy, but ooh I resented that machine!

OK?

The next bit would have been wry reflection (Whaddya mean apoplectic rant? We're doing emotion reflected in tranquility' today, for which I would like to thank my English teacher Mr Richards, who first put university into my fluffy head, my parents, who paid for it, and William Wordsworth, nice man, pretty good poet.) - yes, wry reflection - on how time passed, Habibi got his modem working, and was finally liberated from the daily commute to the office, embarking on the USS Microsoft, with Mama Duck, Habibibaba and millions of other families, for New Lifestyle, eventually settling in Global Village, I.T., where he revelled in the freedom of flexible hours, and the convenience of 24/7 Information Access. Meanwhile Mama Duck, while admiring his dedication, and absolute brilliance, chafed at the slow realisation that working from home meant never leaving the office. Didn't Habibi deserve a better quality of life than this? And where did Mama Duck and Habibibaba fit into the equation?

Of course, these issues have been part of traditional family life for as long as the traditional family, with breadwinners and dependants, has functioned. Yet even with two breadwinners, since the 80s and the cosy Thatcher/Reagan double act, the psychological pressures to work harder, faster, longer have been exacerbated by the presence of at least one computer in every home. Just as Japan's famously company-orientated society began to loosen up, the West started heading in the other direction! Taking individual character and choices into account, it all seems a bit much. (Still doing reflection here!)

And I don't think computer games are so healthy either - if we're not working on our computers, we're playing on them. Surely our ability to deal with other people only comes with practice, so if you chicken out in favour of rescuing Lemmings for hours on end (I love them!), how are you going to get the hang of real people with no re-set, no hot-air balloon, no AK47 or ICBM, no - omigod - no cheats? So says she who spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book.................. but of course that's different!

So what of my new blog lifestyle? Here's the irony: I WAS RIGHT! Ever since April 6th, when Mama Duck went online, it seems I'm either writing or revising my blog, or checking for comments, or reading someone else's, or thinking about something I want to write. I even dreamt I was in a blog the other night, on the page like something out of an admonitory children's film - nice page, though... In short, total obsession. Not doing much else. It's a BAD THING!

On the other hand, instead of being stuck with my own company because it's too hot & humid outside, or Habibi's working, or I'm spent-up/too tired or lazy to do something or go out/can't drive and can't face the bus, I've been to see grannyp in the Canaries, another Englishwoman abroad who's given me plenty to think about; and la petite anglaise in Paris - a pleasure to spend time with, even at this remove; and whoever-that-is turning his cave in Andalucia into a home - no, go see, this is great!; and Karma in Mumbai, with her glorious colours and Sunday competition , which she suspended, just as I found it -Aargh! - and some Spanish language blogs that I can't read without my dictionary, but give me something to look forward to; and of course, Ayalguita in Madrid - now there's another fabulous woman getting on with things. And it's already working both ways, though how nzm ever finds time to write her blog, never mind read anyone else's, is remarkable: go see, as I do, what Dubai has to offer those who'll get off their asses and join in!

I'd follow her example, but I've got places to go in cyber-space.