Getting into the Xmas spirit ...

I am four days away now from being on holiday (hoorah!), but locally they're not even off for Xmas day. However, we are still managing to get into the Xmas spirit of eating, drinking and being merry - having survived the office Xmas lunch (turkey and stuffing?! really?!), we sidled off today for champagne brunch at one of those lovely five star hotels in town. Wow ... as you can see, a balanced meal, with all of the major food groups represented (red, brown, yellow etc, and surely there's at least two of my five a day?)

Life in the Fast Lane

Muscat may be a capital city, but it's got a lovely village feel to it. It really is teeny tiny compared to other great capitals of the world, and it's practically stone age compared to the neighbours in Dubai, where I had the dubious pleasure of making a short visit this weekend ...

From sleepy little Muscat ...

... to the Big Smoke of Dubai

Actually, there was nothing really pleasurable about it - in fact, downtown Dubai is my idea of hell on Earth. Flashy consumerism, great hulking piles of glass and steel, and most of all no soul to speak of, no history or culture of its own has had time to develop, just reflections of some far away vision of wealth and success.

OK, so the Burj Al Khalifa is pretty amazing - 164 floors, half a mile high and weirdly organic in the way it points its crooked finger skywards. I was suitable impressed, it was too big to even get into a single photo ...

But then turn around and it's Dubai Mall, the faux mud walls of Souk Al Bahar, too much Louis Vuitton and not enough Middle East for my liking. And the people - hordes clutching their designer shopping bags and munching on fast food as they waddle or totter on inappropriate footwear from air-conditioned mall to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned home ... although the setting sun did manage to give it all a slight air of romance, it was just too artificial for me, too clean and shiny and stuck in shades of silver and charcoal.

I'm sure I'll go back at some point - a girl needs to dance every once in a while, and there are apparently the world's fastest flumes - but it'll be a calculated dash in and out with friends. A quick taste of the high life in the fast lane, and then hightailing it home to little old Muscat ...

Sensitive souls

Coz some words are just too 'borderline' for Omani sensitivities ...

Yep, definitely in the Middle East

Living in a barren land

Well, you'll have seen that Musandam is the kind of place that words like 'barren' and 'inhospitable' were made for, but like so many remote parts of the world where even cockroaches seem to be having a hard time, people have managed to move in and find a way to survive whatever nature can throw at them - no flat land? scarce water? no greenery? temperatures over 50 degrees for half the year? not a problem! Bring it on!

To be fair, a lot of Musandam is completely uninhabited, but then most of it is at the very least near-vertical and inaccessible, even for one of those little donkeys that seem to get into most nooks and crannies. But wherever the land levels off even for a moment, there seems to be a little house or what looks like a field, just waiting for some rain ...

There are even places where people have decided that horizontal living space is unnecassary - on the way up to Jebel Harim, even the smallest caves have been turned into shelter from the elements, although you wouldn't want to have vertigo or sleepwalk ...

hard to see where mountain rubble ends and house begins ...

To cope with the extreme temperatures, the locals move up into the mountains over the summer, and used to live in these stones houses called 'Houses of the Lock' which are half underground. They're not very easy to get in and out of with only a two foot high door, but the thick walls and being in the ground make a massive difference in temperature, and mean that they can store things in the house and lock up while they're down at the coast during the winter ...

They also used to have summer houses, which have walls that let in any little gusts of wind but a roof to be able to sit in the shade - they look a bit like the kind of posh summer houses you get in gardens in Surrey, but probably a lot less sturdy (and a hell of a lot cheaper!)

Of course, these days even this part of the world has succumbed to the appealing cheapness of breezeblock and air-conditioning, made possible by the free electricity and water tankers supplied by the government to encourage people to stay here rather than flocking to the comforts of urban life down the coast. The new houses are much uglier and probably nowhere near as suitable, but there's something about having a 'modern' house that makes up for it. And of course it's safer and more comfortable to have fridges and cars and mosquito nets, I'm not a complete head-in-the-clouds romantic, but don't we also have something to learn from the past? It took the people of Musandam hundreds (thousands?) of years to learn how to live with nature without destroying it, and I can't help lamenting what we've lost as well as what we've gained ...

juxtaposition of the old and the new -

a traditional dhow and newly-opened Lulu's supermarket

The Depths of Musandam

There is no middle ground in Musandam - you are either up or down, standing on its highest heights or looking into its murky depths. So, apart from the obligatory mountain safari, you cannot spend time in Musandam without at least one day out on the ocean, staring up at the cliffs and down into the water below ...

Omanis are proud of their history as a seafaring nation - it was apparently an Omani who showed Marco Polo how to get to China - and they have lots of different kinds of boats which they still make by hand. In Musandam, the boat of choice for exploring is called a dhow, which is really beautiful to look at and seems stable in the water (although I haven't tested it in a storm like the one that was looming when we went out ...)

There are loads of little fishing boats too, and a good number of smuggling boats which very blatantly race between Musandam and Iran - 45 minutes on a good day I hear. The authorities really don't seem fussed about this, I think they claim to keep an eye on it and step in when things more harmful than cigarettes and TVs are being off-loaded, but i have my doubts ...

But despite all this choice, I ended up spending most of my time out at sea on a classic dive boat - a couple of big off-board motors, some uncomfortable benches, a bunch of smelly divers and the peninsula towering above us ...

I had a ball snorkelling, but unfortunately a mix of poor visibility and not charging up my camera means that I don't have any photos of the most fabulous bits. But here's a little taster of the colour and marine life out there - can't wait to go back for more ...

The Peaks of Musandam

I have finally managed it - a holiday! While the Arab world celebrated Eid Al Adha with prayer and a lot of dead animals, I ran away with a friend of mine to Musandam in the north of Oman. Musandam is a peninsula that juts out into the Arabian Gulf, and is only a hop, skip and a jump from the shores of Iran. But more of that later ...

There are several things that Musandam is famous for; smuggling, sealife, inaccessibility and a good line in strange houses among them. But probably most impressive, and certainly the first thing you notice, is the geography - it's so mountainous that almost all of it is inaccessible by anything except a boat, and the majority of roads call for a pretty sturdy four wheel drive. And as my mate Ken says, it is proper mamba country - miles and miles of bugger all ...

It's not particularly gifted with greenery either, so the geology is all very in-your-face, and there's a good reason for guide book writer Diana Darke's extensive use of the word 'vertiginous' (although twice in one page is just sloppy editting ...). Four wheel driving is not for the faint-hearted ...

... but definitely worth the gripping-the-dashboard-for-dear-life experience, as winding to the top of Jebel Harim, the highest mountain in the area, brings beautiful plateaus and a proper sense of wilderness.

The whole 'mountains falling into the sea' topography means that Musandam also lays claim to the title 'the Norway of the Gulf' (with a slight temperature difference!) because of its fjords -

And then there's the geology ... bendy bits and pretty stripes which probably have interesting scientific names, and frankly cool fossils of ancient deep sea life at 2000m altitude. I'll come back to the geological uniqueness that is Oman, but for now here are a few tasters to get the amateur's juices flowing ... and for the rest of us plebs is just damn pretty.

multi-coloured dreamscapes ...

a fish (complete with eyeball!) and strange pointy shell thing ..

and can you spot the starfish?!

The Jungle Bus is on the road!

So my transformation into a one woman environmental catastrophe is complete, as I am now the proud new owner of a four wheel drive ... henceforth to be known as the Jungle Bus, due to her (why 'her'? I don't know) lush dark green colour and ability to tackle almost any terrain. And here she is at the beginning of our first little outing into the hills of Muscat.

I went out on my own this time, so no driving off road into the wadis (river valleys) or onto mountain tracks - not only because it's rainy season and there's a risk of flash floods, but also because I don't know what I'm doing yet with the car, and it's just not a good idea to get too far off the beaten track without backup - even though I do take the satellite phone with me everywhere now, it still makes sense to have others around so we can pull each other out of sticky situations.

A wadi just waiting to be driven ...

My one personal goal while I'm here is to learn how to handle a four wheel drive and be able to reach every nook and cranny - especially now my arthritis has pretty much put mountaineering off limits, at least for now. So, my plan is to find a keen off-roader - there are plenty here - and offer him or her a few beers and lots of gratitude in exchange for a day or two of lessons in how to properly navigate the tracks and riverbeds. Then I won't have to to limit myself to the very nice but very limited tarmaced roads - I may have broken my leg, but the rest of me still craves the quiet places and nature. So, sdventure here I come!

Turtle action

Life is pretty hectic here, slight issue of various parts of the Gulf either descending into civil war or threatening to annihilate each other, and quiet little Oman stuck in the middle (literally ...). Certainly makes for interesting times ...

But while time off is at a premium, I did manage to take a whole 24 hours off the other day to go and visit the turtle sanctuary in Ras Al Jinz, a couple of hours drive from Muscat. Oman has five of the six species of turtles coming to lay their eggs on the beaches, and in high season (June to September) they even come and nest on the beaches of Muscat. This area though is a nature reserve so that they can get on with their business in peace and quiet.

This is the rather kookie visitors' centre - not quite finished yet, so lots of the interesting sounding exhibits have tantalising 'coming soon' signs on them, but the rooms are comfortable (even though they lack windows) and the food was good.

And this is the view - about a kilometre of nothing except this one lonely tree separating the humans from the beaches where the action is at ... People aren't allowed to just wander down, there are two guided walks, one at 8 in the evening and another at 4 in the morning for sunrise, and there are guides who shepherd people and make sure they're not disturbing the turtles - if they feel hassled, they stop laying and go back into the sea, which means they're full of unlayed eggs and die ... I was worried about how well the guides were able to keep people in check, especially having heard some horror stories, but in fact they were completely on top of it. No photography, no wandering off from the group, and only a few people at a time could get near a turtle.

The beach is pretty beautiful even without the turtles, beautiful soft sand and totally peaceful, but as you can see it wouldn't be a good place to go and relax, as it's absolutely covered in big holes - turtle nests all rammed up close to each other. They come and dig a huge hole at night, lay a few hundred eggs and then shuffle back into the sea before morning comes ...

And then a couple of months later, the little babies come out - we went to visit just at the end of the baby hatching season (although they do lay eggs and hatch all year round), and there were hundreds of the little critters underfoot. Actually quite nerve-racking, as you're trying to walk on the beach in the dark and avoid stepping on them, and they appear all around you. But how cute! Just a few centimetres across and full of beans as they boost down towards the sea and the future ... Sad to realise that of all the many thousands born (30,000 turtles nest in Oman every year), only 1 in a thousand is going to make it to adulthood - hope the little one I followed to the water is one of them! He looked pretty perky to me ...

Home sweet home ...

Well, it's been a long break from writing, and my only excuse is that I have been working like a female dog - so much going on, so little time! In fact, not really enough time to do even the basic domestic stuff, which is why I am only now unpacking the last of my boxes, a bare 5 months after first moving out here ...

I am officially having what we would call in the UK a duvet day, although duvets in this heat? So let's just call it a pyjama day, but other than that the main ingredients are still there - lots of tea, bit of faffing, some slightly more productive pottering, and a good dose of Radio 4 podcasts and trying to catch up on emails. The sun pouring in gives the game away a little, as does the hum of the AC, but you know what I mean.

At the risk of annoying the few of my friends who are still talking to me, I thought I'd also take a few moments to give you a quick glimpse of the flat where I am wallowing in the luxury of free time. I know I put up a couple of photos before, but now it's all furnished and feeling a bit more like home - ready for parties and guests!

OK, so here is the sitting room, now nearly finished and complete with the biggest TV I have ever seen - 50 inches of HD wonder! I got it cheap off someone who was leaving, and believe me, Star Trek has never been this good ..

There are three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, all marble walls and floors - my bathroom even has a jacuzzi, as well as a walk-in shower room. Then there's another toilet off the sitting room / dining room area, and a fifth one in the small maid's quarters near the front door ... I have decided getting a live-in maid is just a silly idea, but do have someone coming round a couple of days a week to do the horrible jobs - ironing, washing all those marble floors, and cleaning all the windows (definitely needed after sandstorms life the one we had a couple of days ago)

And then there's the balcony ... overlooking town and the sea, with a nice corner at one end for the hammock, space in the middle which will soon be occupied by some garden furniture for outdoor dining. And then of course, the pool ...

So there you have it! Le Palais Revest is open for visitors, come join me for a gin and tonic and let's watch the sun set over the Arabian Gulf! Can't believe I'm getting paid to be here ...

The March to Old Age

Well, not so much a march as a shuffle ...

For anyone who's not up to date on my broken leg saga, I'm back in the UK briefly to have some follow-up surgery to try and find out why my stupid bloody leg hasn't fully repaired. I had the surgery nearly two weeks ago, and am now lounging on a sofa in Brighton working hard to fill the days while it heals. Yesterday was the first opportunity I've had to talk to my consultant and find out exactly what they did to me during my 'exploratory surgery', and it was mixed news.

an example of keyhole surgery -

looks pleasing like a laser gun!

On the positive side, I am now minus metal plate (no longer bionic woman, a mere mortal once again ...). Also, there was, as the doctor had suspected, lots of scar tissue getting in the way of the ankle joint, which they removed - I wish I could show you the pretty pictures taken by the cameras that they use for keyhole surgery, but they wouldn't give me them. It basically looks like lots of fluffy stuff floating around between the bones, like the insulation in your roof.

However, on the downside, it turns out that I have cartilage damage too, which is more serious. The consultant tried to sound chipper and say that it might heal on its own over time, and that I should do everything I can to promote strength and flexibility etc etc etc. However, he's not very good at the bright optimism, and did eventually admit that the likelihood is that this damage will deteriorate and develop into full-blown osteoarthritis in the next couple of years.

Great. Arthritis. Like old people.

I had to come home and look up what arthritis was, and thanks to the super-giga-mega-information highway, I now know more than I ever thought I would about how damage to the cartilage leads to bones knocking and rubbing against each other, and all sorts of possible nasty consequences. And reading the list of symptoms for osteoarthritis on the NHS website, it actually pretty much reads like what I've had for the last year anyway;

• pain, especially when doing load-bearing activities, such as walking
• short-lived stiffness in the morning, which improves in 30 minutes or less when you start to move
• difficulty moving your affected joints or doing certain activities

So, a possible lifetime of pain, stiffness and possible swelling awaits, but it turns out that's not the 'only' downside ...

1. The doc has banned me from wearing any footwear except trainers and orthopaedic-style shoes (thank the Lord Fitflops have developed a more stylish range these days ..). No girlie shoes, no sandals, basically nothing without a thick cushioned sole, and definitely no flip flops ... so now I am officially a woman in comfortable shoes. Hey ho!

2. I'm also banned from high impact sports - not just running, but skipping, jumping and most team sports that involve one of the above. So, no football, hockey, basketball, tennis, squash ... and OK, I didn't really do any of those things anyway, but I guess it also covers things like skydiving and canyoning ... boo ...

my dreams of branching out into parkour are shattered ...

3. And of course, down the line, it might be more metalwork for me if my bones get too worn and stop bending properly - a prosthesis! yippee!

But, as you know, I'm a half glass full kind of girl, and even though I am a bit fed up with it all, I always come back to the positives in the end ...

1. I still have a foot - which was a close call, since it seems that had I not had two trained medics up my mountain in the middle of nowhere, the foot would have stayed without any blood flow and all the horrible consequences of that ... I am one lucky lucky lucky cow

2. it could be so much worse - there's nothing like a visit to hospital to stop you feeling sorry for yourself, since whatever you have, there are going to be people there worse off than you ...

3. I prefer wearing comfortable shoes anyway, and now have a medical reason for doing so!

4. I now don't have to feel inadequate for being surrounded by over-achieving marathon runner types at work - the doc says no! I'll just have to lounge in the pool with a G&T and salute their achievements ... please come join me!