Seville Marathon...done!

5 hours and 3 minutes.

The holiday can now really begin!

(P.s. Things that went through my head that I will forget...
1. The half marathon is my distance.
2. I don't need to do another marathon just to break 5 hours!
Remind me of  these things.)

3 Beautiful Things

It has been a while since I wrote my 3BTs, inspired by Clare, but tonight I feel like sharing!

1. A friend makes a quick stop during his 26km training run, to knock on my door and wish me good luck for my marathon. I gave him a yoghurt and a glass of water in return.


2. Goodbye hugs from my class. It will only be a few days...and we ALL need a break from each other...but we will miss each other too.


3. Packing for the holidays! Sometimes packing can be a chore...but I am off to Spain...tonight it is a pleasure!

Kuwait National and Liberation Day Celebrations

It is Kuwait Liberation and National Day coming up. The flags have been out for a couple of weeks now. Lights brighten the normally dull drive around the neighbourhood.

Friends who have lived here for many years all have there own stories of the Gulf War. 

I was with my family living in Scotland then, but we were aware what was going on in this far off sandpit.   My dad has done work in Iraq before, so Kuwait was familiar. For me, it was just a place near to Bahrain…a name that was used in stories of my past again and again. My mum was driving me to the hospital late one night with stomach pains when we heard on the radio that Iraqi troops had invaded Kuwait...we will always remember that.

Not long after Kuwait was liberated, my Dad returned to the Middle East for work. Shortly after Mum and I joined him. It was not unusual then for strangers to stop British/American men in the street and shake their hands and thank them for their support in the war. This happened.

My friend, a great story teller, spoke the other night of a few of his ‘great escape’ moments, when he was a POW in Iraq, taken when Kuwait was invaded. Stories can’t be told too lightheartedly, as his family and friends were back at home worrying about his safety. However, now, years later and over a good bottle of rioja, we heard of trip to the church with the other prisoners, when once inside, would sneak off to the local bar. In those months in Iraq he became a very devote Christian!

Nothing says ‘Happy National and Liberation day’ like Barney wearing the Kuwaiti flag!

 

PS - I am off to Spain TONIGHT!!! I am running the marathon in Seville on Sunday and then hanging out in tapas bars for the rest of the week! I'll send you a postcard!

White Noise in the Sandpit

Traveling makes writers of us all. We make memories and commit them to mind, if only to retell them on a postcard.

Even a short 45 minute flight to a neighbouring Gulf state is inspiring, making me a bit more wide eyed once more.

This was certainly the case when I popped over to Bahrain recently.

Apart from the usual pre-race nerves that makes my mind noisy with advice on everything from my morning routine to my self-doubt for the run, there was the welcome noise from outside; the sounds of night crickets flirting with one another.

I no longer felt like I was in the sandpit. Not my sandpit anyway.

I used to write about the African night, that brought the outdoors in (this is always a bit more intense on safari...like in Tsavo!). The screeching of the hyraxes, or Coco, 'my' guard dog, barking after a wild cat in the tree, or the chatter from the askari hut.

Now, the sounds that I fall to sleep to are of the local boys (who seem to be on a year-long holiday from school) playing football late into the night on a piece of dirt-sand that is used as a car-park. This, thankfully, is no longer punctuated by the fireworks or air-gun rifles that were available at Eid and lingered long after the holiday! Construction is always taking place. Through the night the sound of cranes, trucks and hammering...somewhere. Rubbish is being collected. Trucks are reversing. Horns beep. Bikes and cars race. Brakes screech. Oh, and then it is prayer time again. The mosque, that I can see through my window reminds my neighbours that it time to worship Allah (this is not a gentle reminder, more of a bucket of water poured on your head,with the drill sergeant shouting, "GET OUT OF BED!!!"), to me, it is a sign that a new day is here...but not just yet...5 more minutes or so.

It is not a peaceful place to drift off to sleep, but after a while, the noise that keeps you awake becomes familiar...like everything in the place that you live. My writing seems to reflect this recently, at a loss of how to report on the unusual, tending to recount the mundane.

I have such talented friends, who write about the region with more of a flair. If you are interested, check out these blogs.

Life in a Dust Storm - a great story teller (I actually want to retell some from dinner the other night), everything from being a POW to good old rants about low-cost airlines.

Sand in my Teacup - if we all gang-up on her, we may get her to write more!

Yalla Bo - an athletic idol of mine writes too!



Happy reading.