Diabetes, life and all that - personal diary

pavlosn said:

Woke up extremely early today, must have been about 4:30 am.

What woke me up was the sound of the rain hitting our bedroom window. Must have been quite a strong shower for the sound to come through triple glazed windows.

I love being tugged in in bed on a cold(ish) night listening to the sound of the rain. It is a sound that takes me back to my childhood. We had a shed with a corrugated metal roof in our backyard just a few meters away from my bedroom window and I used to love the sound of the rain bouncing of it.

It's funny how certain sounds and certain smells seem to resonate within us and plug our emotional strings. I can never resist the smell of cut grass, baking bread and burning olive leaves. As for sounds, apart from the aforementioned rain, flowing water, crashing waves and perhaps rather surprisingly the sound of an orchestra tuning up before the start of a concert; it is such a wonderfully pregnant sound, full of the promise of delights to come.

I think of music as the most abstract of the arts but as the one that packs the strongest emotional punch. Perhaps it is this relationship between sounds and emotion which lies behind this. A beautiful piece if music, when well performed has the power to transport us from our current reality and in some ways offer us s glimpse of God. Surely it is no accident that music plays such a large part in many religious services.

By the time it was time for me to get up the rain had long stopped so I forced myself to go on one of my morning walks; after having a rest day yesterday I could not afford to do so again.

This was a decision I came to enjoy soon afterwards, as what greeted my outside was a lovely morning with lots of sunshine and a fresh out of a bath feel; everything washed clean by the morning shower

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We are heading for a short break in Dubai over the New Year, as the wife was gracious enough to inform me last night.

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We were there last four years ago ( the photo of Dubai creek with the worlds tallest building Burj Khalifa in the background was taken during that visit) and really enjoyed our stay there.

My comment that with the weather here being what it is we hardly needed a break to warmer climes was met by a stony silence and ignored with all the contempt my wife clearly felt it deserved.

We will be going there with some friends, another couple and their son who is the same age as our own son.
They came over so that we can "discus" our plans for what we will do during our stay there. For discuss substitute told by our wives - my suggestion that we should visit the world's largest indoor free-fall parachuting centre they have there,did not generate too much enthusiasm and, on second thought, perhaps just as well.

The shock of the night though, in a night full of surprises, started when they started options for what to do on New Year's Eve itself.

I almost had a stroke when I herd what dinner at our hotel that night would cost.

You never saw a man converted to the attraction of greeting the New Year under the stars in the open desert in the Company of beduins.

I don't care if the beduins serve us camel dung for dinner, I am not paying 350 pounds per person to see in the New Year at the hotel's dinner dance.

So having travelled full circle, from the sublime to the ridiculous, I bid you farewell for now.

Back again soon.

Pavlos

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pavlosn said:

Still shocked at that price of 350 pounds per person for dinner.

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