Carrie is busily preparing for the launch of her Art Detox online course and has muttered a few times as we enter or exit the car that she has to get out and weed the garden one day.This is Joseph’s BMW that has become Carrie’s car to use because he did not want to put the company monitoring system in it. Instead the system was installed in Carrie’s Honda so that is what Joseph drives to work leaving the Beamer for Carrie.  She doesn’t complain about it either.

The garden is comprised of a row of trees down the side of the house and a big dirt patch at the back door where Joseph keeps the BBQ.  Why the landlord didn’t cover the whole area with paving stones none of us can figure out.  (The door and window behind the BBQ in the first photo belong to “the maid’s quarters.”  Many locals and expats have a live-in maid and lots of the houses are built with a room for a maid.

Several of the trees along the wall have died since the landlord planted them.  Carrie took a cutting of one and stuck it into a pot in the livingroom in the hopes it will root and can be transplanted outside.  It is actually doing quite well.  In another month or so once it has grown a new leaf or two she will move it outside.The other day John went out and used a shoe lace and two picture hangers to tie back one of the trees that was leaning way over the walkway and then pulled most of the weeds (there were not that many really, certainly nothing like the amount of weeds our garden at home cultivates).

We decided that today we would do some extensive trimming on the trees to remove some of the lower growth and therefore encourage them to go up and not out.  We took clippings from some of our cuttings and dipped them into a liquid fertilizer Carrie had in the maid’s room that is used as a storage room and stuck them into the ground.  A drink of water was given to each as well.  Maybe one or two of them will root and survive and fill in some of the blank spots.  If not, oh well; we tried.

One of the plants was very unruly and bushy. It had numerous stalks coming up from the base and many sprouting every which way.  We got brutal with it and trimmed most of them off, then we braided the three ‘main’ stalks we left intact and John used the other shoelace fastened to the wall to keep it upright.  He also took one of the cuttings and stuck it into the back corner of the dirt patch.  If this plant is supposed to be all low and bushy it can go to town over there.

John picked up an armload of the larger clippings and deposited them into the dumpster across the road then he went into the house to put a new appliance plug in the laundry room so the washing machine will quit shorting out and stopping.  When Carrie made a quick trip to the grocery store this morning John went along to see if he could find a replacement outlet.  He had to get the entire unit but now the washer should work properly.

 While John was doing his electrician thing I cleaned up all the leaves and dirt and swept all the pavers.  Carrie is pleased as punch that we did it for them and very happy with how tidy the area now looks. She laughingly said she was going to show the photos to her parents so they can see what will be expected of them if they come over to visit some day.

It wasn’t a very big job, didn’t take us very long either, but I agree with Carrie the ‘garden’ looks much neater now.

BEFORE                                                                          AFTER

And, just in case all of the cuttings we stuck in the ground die, we put one of each kind of tree into the livingroom pot where it may survive and thrive.  

Today is Sunday, normally the first work day of the week for Joseph, but today was declared a holiday last week to celebrate the prophet Mohammed’s birthday.  We took a short drive up past the Muscat International Airport to Sahwa Park.

The park is 300,000 square meters in size, has a running track, a large playground for the kiddies, gazebos, six sunken Islamic Gardens, and hundreds of large palms you can spread a blanket under for a shady picnic.  It is a very popular place with the locals and expats on a day off. There were familiy groups all over the place playing games with their kids, having lunch and just strolling the pathways. The whole place is beautifully manicured and all the hedgerows and trees are clipped and shaped.  There are lovely geometric patterns and shapes all over the place. From the parking lot you can see the Sahwa Clocktower.  It is in the middle of a round-about so it is hard to get a nice photos but it is very large and there are really nice mosaic scenes around the four sides of the base.

I liked the sign at the entrance.  Take note of item number 9.  Strange that they feel the need to spell that one out I think, but hey, who knows what some people may think is appropriate for their children to play with.

We meandered along the paths and John, Carrie and I had a great time taking photographs.  Joseph, who is a non-photographer, suffered our stops and starts with relatively good humor. He did take a break and sat in the shade on one of these benches for awhile though.

This young dad hung his dishdasha on a palm tree while he played  soccer with his sons.

Joseph is like me in that he does not like to have his photo taken. This is something Carrie likes to tease him about and will stick the camera right into his face just to annoy him. In the center of the garden is a  beautiful small mosque in the middle of a large pond.  You can see the heads of fountains in the pool but they were not working today. The paving stones all the way around the mosque are grey, red and yellow in a symmetrical sunburst-type pattern.  I loved the lines and uniformity; my OCD side appreciates it (or as we say in my house, “My CDO,” because the letters are in alphabetical order like they should be).

We stopped in the shade beside the mosque for awhile to enjoy the scene and the breeze before we wandered back to the car and the villa.

A nap for Carrie, some work for Joseph, my blog for me, puzzles for John and a game were our plans after lunch.  Carrie had purchased a slow-cooker the other day and had put all the ingredients for a beef stew into it before we left; yea for dinner.  And Joseph made us all ham and cheese omelets for breakfast too!  We are doing well at this ‘hotel.’

Our daughter-in-law Carrie is an artist and was a teacher of senior high school level art and head of the fine arts department at the Dubai American Academy. The year before the move to Oman Carrie was the Assistant Principal of the school.  She is a talented and very eclectic artist and has had her work shown at The Smithsonian and The Kennedy Hall of States in Washington DC, at galleries and cafes in Dubai and here in Oman; galleries or museums in Tennesse, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, Ohio and New York. In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Sheikha Manal’s Young Artist Award via Dubai Ladies Club and had to get all spiffied up to attend the presentation ceremony.  Joseph even wore a suit! Carrie would tour construction sites in Dubai and take photos of the interesting items and shapes and from her photographs she did these two colored pencil pieces.

She holds a BA in arts and art history from Colgate Univeristy (a top Liberal Arts University in New York State) and a Masters in Educational Leadership and Administration from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.  Since her and Joseph’s move from Dubai to Oman a year ago she has been ‘a kept woman.’  The year as Assistant Principal took its toll on her health and she chose to take a year off and work on her art and her blog: Artist Think.com.  As I mentioned in a previous post Carrie has been working very hard on a new project and is about to launch a five-week online course on Creative Play (The Art Detox).  She is brimming with ideas for her business and her blog and makes copious notes in her many journals to keep track of all the things she would like to do.  On Artist Think Carrie posts interviews with other artists and does personal commentary that is aimed at encouraging others to actively pursue and make time for whatever creative outlet they enjoy.This is a photo Carrie took when visiting us in BC and she had it mounted onto canvas.

Carrie loves to take classes. She would sign up for dozens if she had the time.  Because of her interest in all things creative she experiments with her own creativity.  She works in many different mediums from oil to acrylic to colored pencil to pen and ink or charcoal and mixed mediums.  In the five years since she met our son she has worked art in yarn, taken courses in jewelry making (she designed and made Joseph’s wedding ring), pottery and photography.

 Carrie says she does a lot of self-portraits because she doesn’t like asking other people to sit for as long and as often as it takes to do a painting, or in the case of these pieces, work the yarn.

Many rooms in their villa have samples of her art hanging on the walls.  Since today was an ‘at home, do nothing day’ after I got royally beaten – again – at Agricola I went around and took photos of her work.

I love this one.  If I had a place to hang it in my house it would be going home in my luggage. Unfortunately, our son also likes it so I suspect it’s absence would be noted.

Here are some closer details of the mixed medium painting (upper left photo) that hangs in our bedroom here at the villa. Another favourite of mine is this painting of “Heather,” Carrie’s childhood rabbit.

Carrie changed into her co-ordinating running pants and running shoes and went for a run before she goes out to visit with some friends this evening.

John and Joseph were busy trying to figure out why the TV in the downstairs living room shorts out whenever the air conditioning comes on so it was a perfect time for me to write my blog.  (The washing machine shorts out regularly as well and has to be reset a time or two during each load.  Again….they live in a brand new duplex villa.  Obviously there are some competency issues among the electricians in Muscat.)

In Dubai and Muscat there are brunches.  Brunches are held at nice hotels and start about 1 pm on weekends.  Most brunches are all you can eat, all you can drink and last all afternoon.  Our Christmas gift from Joseph and Carrie was a brunch with them at Chedi, a very upscale hotel and spa about 20 minutes drive from their house. Joseph had made a reservation for a terrace table and we were seated under a patio roof looking toward the ocean.  Joseph and Carrie had been to a brunch at Chedi before and suggested that John and I go and scope out the various buffet offerings before making any selections because there were three kitchens creating food for four or five buffet lines.  There was a Thai row, which was Carrie’s favourite, a traditional Baron of Beef and mini-roasted potatoes section that was Joseph’s, and everything from soup to salad to seafood. The idea is to try small amounts of different things and pace yourself to relax and enjoy the afternoon.  The setting was beautiful, the temperature was pleasant and there was just enough of a breeze to keep us all comfortable. I took a stroll around the grounds between courses two and three. The hotel complex is very large and very beautiful.  It fronts on a lovely stretch of sandy beach, has a large pool surrounded by outdoor beds for relaxing and reading, several private villa buildings and lots and lots of very attentive staff.

We left Joseph’s car at the hotel and took a cab home.  We arrived at 6 pm, finished our game of Empire Builder and watched a movie before bed.  It was a lovely Christmas gift and we had a wonderful day.  Thank you Joseph and Carrie.

We brought in 2015 following Trish’s ongoing travel mess.  She did fly out of Dubai on time at 10 am Dec 31 Muscat time on her flight to San Fransisco and arrived on time but didn’t get as much sleep as she would have liked because there were at least six infants in the seats surrounding hers.

She went to the San Fran ticket counter to get her boarding passes for her flights to Seattle and Kelowna, only to be told she was booked on a flight leaving at 4 pm THE NEXT AFTERNOON!  By this time she had had about 4 hours sleep in the past 49 hours so, understandably, she cried.  And I don’t blame her!  A supervisor at the flight counter managed to get her a seat on the flight she was told she would be on in the first place.  When she boarded she discovered she was in Business Class – one small favour amidst all the frustration.

All flights from there took off and landed on time and she arrived in Kelowna at 12:14 am on Jan 1 Pacific Time which is 12 hours behind us here in Oman. Just to add another element to this horror story, when she went to use the washroom during her layover in Seattle, her kneecap dislocated and she had to push it back into place.  So, she was not only massively frustrated, very, very tired but in pain the rest of the way home.

My brother-in-law had kindly offered to drive us all to the airport when we left and to pick Trish up when she returned.  He was waiting when she got through customs and drove her to our home in Salmon Arm where she picked up her car and drove herself to her house in Sicamous.  By the time she arrived at her door she had been travelling for 61 hours!!!  She should have been home in 25 hours counting the early arrival time to get through security and the time between flights – of which she should have had two, not four.  Needless to say she is ecstatic to be home!  Two friends of hers were staying in her house while she was away and Sean had a nice meal waiting to welcome her home.  She does have a lot of good friends.

If she wasn’t so tired she would be cheering like she did our first day when we went to the beach.

Since I had not slept well the night before and we had stayed up so late to see Trish off I went to bed at 10:30.  I woke up at 1 and came out and checked my computer to see if Trish had arrived in San Fransisco yet.  We chatted on line for a few minutes and I went back to bed.  Happy New Year to one and all.

Jan 1 is not a holiday here so Joseph went to work this morning after having two unexpected days off to use up his holidays.  Carrie had to go shopping for some new runners as the heel base on one of her shoes came off at the promenade yesterday.  She had a couple of other specific things she was looking for so John and I stayed home and let her do her searching  without distractions.

She returned about an hour later after successfully finding all three things she was looking for, including these awesome runners!  I am getting myself a pair of these before I go home.  For sure.For the last two weeks Trish has been sleeping on the day bed in the third bedroom of the villa. This room is normally Carrie’s studio/office.  While it was occupied by Trish Carrie would do a lot of her work sitting on the bed in her and Joseph’s bedroom.  Now that Trish is successfully home the day bed has been converted to it’s normal size and Carrie is back in her studio.  She has an artist’s blog on creativity (check out artistthink.com) with articles and interviews and has been working for some months on launching an on-line course.  She calls it The Art Detox and it is due to launch on Jan 15.  It is a five-week course that encourages creative play and she has been working long hours to get it ready and get all the aspects of her new business venture set up.  She really enjoyed having Trish come to visit and was sad to see her go but she is also happy to have her space back.

The villa has three bedrooms on the second floor (all with full ensuite bathrooms) and a second living room/family room area as well. This is where we hang out most of the time. Joseph has his desk in the corner where he does work for a while most evenings.  There is a 52″ flat screen and lots of movies but John and I generally sit on the couch with our computers and check out stuff, read Facebook, play online games and I write my blog.

As I have mentioned several times in my blog, we play games when we get together with Joseph and Carrie.  I have always loved to play games and we played many different board games and card games when the kids were growing up.  Both of them still enjoy games.

Joseph and Carrie have a long dining table and currently we have two different games set up on it and we alternate between one and the other for an hour or so in the evening.

We maintain a hectic pace around here! I love it.

I didn’t sleep well and got up at 7 to message Trish and see how her flight plan was doing.  She was at the airport and had gotten a bit of sleep at the hotel.  She plans to get more sleep on the plane.  Her flight was scheduled to leave at 8:50 am for San Fransisco and at 8:37 she messaged that they had just announced a gate change!  “All that running paid off,” she wrote back a few minutes later.  However the message received half an hour later was, “Why does the universe hate me?  There is a crying baby in the seat beside me.” Due to all the cancellations yesterday the plane was full so she had no chance to change her seat.  The good thing, I hope, is that an hour after take-off most babies go to sleep on flights. It is the toddlers who cause the most disruption because they are active and do not like to be confined for hours on end.  She is finally on a plane and heading homeward.  Please, please everything go well for the rest of her trip….

Carrie, Joseph and John all slept in a bit today.  Catch-up from the lack of sleep the other night.  We had planned to drive to Seeb to explore a park out there, but Joseph and Carrie both had some work they would like to get done. (We’ll go on the weekend.) Also the weatherman predicted rain for later in the afternoon and when it rains here, it really rains.  This would be fine if the rain stayed outside. Unfortunately the windows leak in their villa, which is ridiculous since they are the first tenants in the new building.  Rain pours down the  stairs that go up to the roof through the base of the window at the top and Carrie told us that if we had anything on the floor in front of the window in our bedroom we should move it because water comes in most of the windows.

John and I took a walk mid-afternoon.  It was definitely cooler and there were a lot of clouds in the sky, plus a light breeze.  Muggy though.  However the rain did not materialize. I only did one lap of the neighbourhood route because I knew John wanted to do a power walk lap and I can’t keep up to him when he goes like that.

J & C’s stove top is fueled by propane tank; the oven is electric.  They bought four tanks of propane on the advice of the salesman when they moved in 14 months ago.  We changed out the first tank a few days ago.  Every time the guy comes by he is incredulous that they don’t need more propane.

Also all the water is de-salinated so people buy bottled water because there is a weird after taste to the tap water, even though it is perfectly fine to drink.

Both these commodities are sold door to door.  The trucks drive by almost every day, which would be fine except the drivers feel they need to give three beeps on their horn at every house.  There are more than fifty houses in this neigbourhood so that is an awful lot of annoying beeps.  Carrie and I want to go outside and pull the wires!  Surely every fifth or six or tenth house would do.  It isn’t as if all the nearby houses can’t hear your beeping and know they can come outside, flag you down and buy their water or propane.  They do some very interesting/weird things here.  But I am sure the locals would think we do some pretty strange things too if they lived in our towns.

So, other than our walk around the block and some games in the evening it was a leisurely do nothing day – for John and me anyway.  Carrie was busy preparing for the launch of her online art creativity course and Joseph was writing a report for work and completing his medical expenses forms.  Just a thrilling day all around. And….Trish is still in the air somewhere.  As of this writing at 8:15 pm Muscat time she has 14 hours of flights and waiting for connections left ahead of her.  Talk about a long, long day.  Thinking of you Trish.

Sorry, doing nothing generated no photos today.

Happy New Year everyone.  May 2015 be for you a year of blessing and joy.

We all stayed up until 2 am to see Trish on her way.  Joseph and Carrie drove her to the airport in plenty of time for her 5 am flight to Dubai so they got home again about 3.  She messaged them at 3:30 to say the flight from Muscat to Dubai was delayed and the scheduled arrival time would now leave her about 35 minutes to make her connection to Seattle.                                   Not looking too bad for 2 am.

By the time the Musact flight landed in Dubai she had missed the connection. Emirates Air re-booked her on a 10 am flight tomorrow to San Fransisco with a connecting flight to Kelowna that would arrive at midnight Dec. 31/Jan1.  She spent several hours in a long line trying to get a different/better connection to no avail.  When Trish planned her two week vacation she scheduled it so she would get home in time for New Year’s Eve, one of her two favorite holidays of the year (the other is Hallowe’en).  That isn’t happening now unfortunately.

We decided to go for a walk along the beach at the promenade again.  There was an accident that backed up traffic for miles so the normal 15-20 minute drive took over an hour.This is one of twin fountains in front of a corridor of government buildings.  I’m pretty sure the top ornaments are real gold.

We also drove past the HSBC bank building which has gold doors and gold-topped pillars.The tide was really low so John and I wandered on the beach while Joseph and Carrie did a faster circuit on the sidewalk.  A quick coffee pick-up at Starbucks and we were on the way home again. I liked the glimmer of the sun on the shallow water along the shore.  It created a very nice effect.

At four o’clock we heard from Trish again that she was unable to change her flights and Emirates Air was putting her up in a hotel for the night. She has to be up at 4 am to get to the airport in time for her 8:50 am flight to San Fransisco.  She doesn’t know how long the connection is up to Kelowna once she gets there and by then she didn’t care.  She had been awake for about 39 hours by then and was having something to eat and going to bed.  What a nightmare!  Delayed flights and missed connections BOTH ways.  This will be a holiday she won’t remember with a great deal of fondness, I think, even though we all had a good visit and she met some new friends.  Messed up travel plans just taint a trip somehow, no matter how enjoyable it may have been.  She will be very glad to get home.  Unfortunately she also has to work at 6 am Friday so it will be a very short recovery time.  Not a good end to a holiday.  Poor Trish.

When Bryan, (the friend of Trish’s Salmon Arm friend) who lives in Muscat, came to get her last night for their planned trip to the Grand Mosque, Trish mentioned that John & I had not yet been to the Mosque either.  Bryan offered to take us all this morning and last night took Trish on a tour of Muscat to see the city lights.

At quarter to 9 this morning Bryan was at the door.  He is a Welshman who has lived in Oman off and on since 1995 and permanently since 2012.  He too works for an oil company. It has offices is Aberdeen, Scotland and Edmonton, Alberta and Bryan has been to Canada several times.  He is great fun and full of laughs and stories.

He has been to the Mosque many times and knows many of the staff by name.  We toured the Ladies Area and as we were leaving a fellow frowned at Trish and asked which gate she had entered through.  A few minutes later a soldier came up to us and asked Trish to leave.  She had purposely chosen a long skirt and long-sleeve top to wear and had her head covered with a pashmina.  But her skirt had splits in the sides and was considered indecent.  Joseph and Carrie’s villa is only a five minute drive from the Mosque so John and I continued to wander around and Bryan took Trish back to change. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque was commissioned by the Sultan and is maintained by him.  Construction began in 1995 and took six years.  It can accomodate up to 8,000 worshippers in the main mussalla and 750 women in the ladies mussalla.  If the outdoors and passageways are also used there can be 20,000 worhippers on the site.

The gardens are extensive and beautiful.  There were many cleaners and gardeners and maintainence workers on the premises.  Any place inside that non-muslim people would be walking was covered with a blue cloth.

The carpet in the men’s mussalla is the second-largest single piece rug in the world. It took 600 women 4 years to complete and it contains 1,700,000,000 knots.  (Yes that is the correct number of zeros – 1.7 billion knots.) It covers an area of 4,343 square meters and is 70 X 60 meters in size – all in one piece.

The central chandelier was made by Faustig of Germany using 1,122 Swarovski Austrian Crystals.  It is 14 meters tall. Each Friday the Koran is placed into this niche during prayer service. The Women’s Mussalla also had chandeliers but they were smaller.  The carving on the doors was amazing.  The carpet in the Women’s Mussalla was sectioned to show individual kneeling spots.  The women would kneel at the back and when they bowed their head it rested in the top of the curve and facing Mecca.Outside there were covered passageways down both sides of the complex that had tiled niches on each side.  The sections of niches displayed examples of Muslim art styles through the ages.  Each section had about 12 niches – six on each side of the passageway and all were different examples of the particular art style represented.

This is the men’s ablution area where they perform ‘wudhu,’ a ceremonial washing of their feet, hands, and face before going to pray. The women have a separate ablution area as well. Bryan is demonstrating the technique.  Of course, a Muslim man would take his shoes off first!

Under construction across the road is the new Royal Court Building where judicial matters will be discussed and court cases settled.

We spent just over two hours wandering at the Mosque. Bryan had to be at work around 12:30 so he still had an hour and a half to show us around.  He drove through the mountain that separates the city of Muscat, turned around on the other side and then stopped at a small pullout about half way back down.  He and Trish had come here last night to see the city lights.  We thought it was pretty impressive in the daylight as well.

To make a road you just carve off a mountain.  The Sultan does not like tunnels.  He considers them too dangerous and likely to be closed due to accident pile-ups.  The way we have seen the Omani drive I think that is a pretty accurate assumption. It is desolate country – the landscape looks like a moonscape.

You can just make out the new airport in the distance.

We had a great morning with Bryan. He was a lot of fun and he and Trish teased each other all the time.  It was very humourous and very kind of him to show us around.  Joseph and Carrie have not been to the mosque yet either and John and I are more than willing to go again if they want to see it while we are here.  It is a beautiful building on beautiful grounds and a very peaceful place.

Joseph’s work week began again today so he was gone when I got up.  Trish was just returning from a 6.5 km run.  She had wanted to do 8 km but it was getting too hot.

We did a lot of nothing today.  We chatted some and we played a card game. Later I played some computer games and John did Sudoku puzzles.  Carrie retired to her bedroom to do some work.  She will be glad to get her studio back in a couple of days when Trish’s holiday is over.  She will be even happier when John & I go home and she can return to her normal routine.  She and Joseph have made us all very welcome and are pleased we have come to visit, but I know from my own experience that even if you enjoy having company it is always nice when they leave and things return to normal. The sun was at the optimum angle for Trish’s sojourn to the rooftop just as we finished our card game.  While getting her daily dose of sunshine she was able to connect with a friend of one of her Salmon Arm friends who lives here in Muscat.  They plan to go see the Grand Mosque this evening.The Grand Mosque in Muscat is the largest mosque in Oman. The second largest is currently under construction in Nizwa.

Carrie texted Joseph a list of groceries she would like him to pick up on his way home (Poor Joseph and Carrie, they have never had to buy so many groceries so often.) and he told her that he had two vacation days to use up before the end of the year or he will lose them.  So, he will be taking Tuesday and Wednesday off.  He tries to not schedule holiday days that connect to Friday or Saturday as those are the weekend days here and if he adds a day off on to either of them the two days of the weekend are also counted as part of his holidays.  It will be nice to have those two unplanned days together.

Oman has a population of 4 million people with 39% (to be reduced to 33%) foreign workers.  It is the highest oil and natural gas producer in the Middle East that is not a member of OPEC.  In 2012 86% of the government revenue came from hydrocarbons and in 2013 oil and natural gas accounted for 50% of Oman’s Gross Domestic Product.  The country’s fiscal breakeven point for oil this year is $105 per barrel, so Oman needs the export price of oil to be near that figure to have sufficient revenue.  With the price of oil dropping so much lately I am sure they are doing some serious number crunching.

Dubai uses gas turbines and CCPP(combined cycle power plants – I looked it up).  Neither country has enough lakes or consistent water supply to generate hydo-electric power.Men and women in Arab cultures have separate social lives.  Even if you invite friends into your home for dinner and the evening, the men and women will entertain separately.  A wedding celebration has two components: one for the men, one for the women.  Ahmed, our tour driver on the dune bashing expedition, was very surprised that Trish did not live with her parents.  And even more surprised that she maintained her own three-bedroom house in another town from her parents.  Women in some Arab nations are not permitted to drive cars.  In Dubai all the taxis are the same beige color except for the roofs which were different colors depending on who owned the business (Joseph thinks they have all been amalgamated now even if the roof colors are still different).  There are pink-roofed cabs that are exclusively for women who are going shopping unaccompanied by a male relative. As you can tell from the random observations and photos, it was a pretty quiet day at Villa Hanna in Muscat today.

We enjoyed a morning excursion again today.  Joseph drove us into old town Muscat and we wandered around the souk. Trish was checking for any last minute items she needed to purchase for herself or her friends as she leaves for home in two days.  John and I are staying another two weeks.

What Trish would really like is a Persian Lamp for her front entry or her bedroom. But we all agree that the odds of it arriving home in one piece are pretty slim. She did find a couple of amethyst pendants to wear on a silver chain that she really likes.

I , who rarely shop unless for necessities, was the biggest shopper today; if you count four items as big shopping.  I bought two pairs of sandals.  I also bought an Arabian-styled carving of an Elephant – I love elephants – and a notepad with watermark images or symbols on each page. It will be handy for me as well because it opens from left to right and since I am left-handed this works perfectly.  Arabic writing is done from right to left so their books, notebooks and journals open oppposite to ours. We spent a couple of hours wandering the souk and then walked through two small art galleries.  Carrie, being an artist, is always interested in other artists work and ideas that may inspire her own creativity.

Parking in Muscat is always a challenge.  The lots in the malls fill very quickly as do any spots on the streets so drivers make parking spots out of any space they can find.  If they own a four-wheel drive vehicle it is very common to see them drive over curbs and across meridians to park on sidewalks or an open space.  Any empty alleyway becomes a parking lot.

We next drove to the mall near Joseph and Carrie’s house to purchase some dried apricots.  On October 5, a lady in the neighbourhood knocked on the door and gifted Carrie a piece of lamb meat from the animal they had slaughtered for the family’s Eid Al Adha celebration.  This was a very generous and welcoming gift for a Saudi lady to offer to an American.  Carrie put the meat into the freezer and tonight she is cooking it with an apricot sauce for herself and John and Trish.  Joseph and I, who don’t care for lamb will enjoy left over turkey.

There is a Starbuck’s in this mall, so apparently it was time for another coffee.

Trish lay in the sun on the roof for awhile after lunch then went for an eight km run.  Carrie, John, Joseph and I played Firefly, another game we gave to them for Christmas.  We finished – John won – a few minutes before Trish returned.  It was then time to begin the preparations for dinner.  How quickly our busy (not) days are going by.  They are very enjoyable though.