playing along

erm sorry, the post before last was actually posted by my youngest sister... haha very hilarious..haaahaaa..; sorry can't stop laughing..ehm.haaha

Everything is dry

Moving makes you think, you know. Try walking round and round the dining table, or sitting in a quiet car travelling a regular speed on the highway. I got quite alot of this phenomenon in the passenger seat, 12 hours to Makkah and 12 back, except for when I was chauffeur.

You can think reflective thoughts, like there are many skid marks on the road, who made them? I wonder what happened.

You can be passive in your thoughts, like the outside view doesn't matter to your mood. On a long journey you are bound to see alot of things, which might all be almost the same as each other. Or ...there is a alot of sky over the desert and road, but you can't really stare too much at it as there's also alot of sun.

You can try to be funny. An observation that nothing is photographable. That if you happen to line up everything nicely a tree will suddenly appear, or a camel. That if you snap either of them they will probably not be there anymore because a lorry is in the way or we've already driven past them.

Or serious. What's the point of sandstorm-area signs when you'll always know if you're in a sandstorm or not.

Ok enough thinking; i'm not speaking like myself anymore. My dad bought me a phone. i'm trying to write normally but it's turning out like an essay. Anyways, it's the kind of model which requires push-ups for a text message and puts you on a permenant lookout for positive things in it, like if I didn't have this phone I wouldn't have one, maybe I can flash it about if I don't want to get mugged and at least it has a torch which you can shine in your friend's eyes if he's inspecting it too closely.

Umrah was very easy alhamdulillah. Light grey clouds were streaming over the Haram and they brougt shade and a cool breeze while were were out in the open making tawaf around the Ka'bah. The clouds were also streaming through the four minaret-corners of a massive clock which is being built as part of the King Abdul Aziz towers, and the clock is so high you can see it between the mountains some way out of Makkah.

No photos of the haram or Makkah; forgot my camera in the car in the car-park on the outskirts of the city. Haha..

                                                                  desert-side cottage

                                                              iftar by the road - on the way there

                                                      a railway station for pilgrims in Hajj time

                                                                 on the way out of Makkah

                                        we took the mountain route - Al Hada - so we're climbing now

                                                

         a disgusting representative of roadside bathrooms - it's part of a masjid, which is the usual format.

                                      hitch-hiking bedouin ? haha, no it's a dismounted truck driver.

                                                       a way more interesting view than usual

       that's a road-side restaurant. No... no, not a hospital, though it might send you to one if you eat there

                                          the Najd plateau. It means we're close to Riyadh..home.

                      To Makkah or back, this steepish incline is the first or last landmark on the road

                                                          I like it though...

sunny and colourful

Ok so how do you like it, what do you think? it looks fun and happy to me. it looks bright and colourful like my mood on a sunny day. or like a sunny day in an Enid Blyton book; when the children go for walks and laugh and have ice cream and play frisbee and skipping in the park.

Or like something I could draw and colour when the sun's coming through the class windows just before first break.

maybe

I just wanna feel what blogging's like. I've forgotten. Its been such a long time.

In grade 8 I had an eye-wateringly good English teacher, and that's not just because he brought onions to class and chucked them at students who mis-behaved. I'm not going to list his virtues here, but it's enough to know I haven't yet met a student from our grade 8 batch who doesn't think he was a great teacher.

Well, I met him the other day in Carrefour. "salam sir, how u doing?" I think he replied that he was fine, but I'm not sure. "you know, there've been rumours about your health, sir". " well, they aren't rumours..... at least the therapy isn't killing me yet ". The rumours are that Mr Isma'il has cancer.

He asked me to make Du'a for him, and I in turn ask everyone who reads this to make Du'a for his speedy and full recovery inshA'llah. A'meen.

a little two somethings...

We just finished a barbecue upstairs. There was far too much food, and that's because Muhammad, being fat and greasy, insisted on having steaks in addition to the usual quota.

Went to Khobar with Abi around 3 weeks ago. Its in the eastern province. Actually, more like tagging along. I had no business going, except that I had finished exams. Of course I deserved a holiday, if only to compensate for exam-induced forehead wavefronts. Instead of a car we went by train.

You may know , for certain, that I brought a notepad and pen along; to describe a rough journey, and all the rattling in the carriage and noisy crowd. and possibly some characters taking the train ride too, who would be peculiar to this desert country. I could write about views also, peculiar to barren monotonous deserts, which are held from cracking under the sun's heat by a spider's web of civilisation across it. I imagined all this before I left.

So we got on the train, it sounded a horn like someone with a completely blocked nose trying to unblock it, then slowly rumbled out of the station. my anticipations were methodically run over by the train along the journey, and lie somewhere along that featureless route. Not even the dates and coffee the waiter served can revive them. The windows were glazed misty white, so no photos worthwhile could be taken. The people too, they could have done more interesting things then read or fall asleep.

All together, I had a really fine time recording nothing. I got some photos and videos inside the train though, so I'll post them inshAllah. - the photos.

The hotel was nice mashAllah. The food was very nice. The weather in Khobar was actually almost England's. cold, -very cold- ,windy. The only difference between the train journey to Khobar and the journey back was that it was in the opposite direction.

and happy photos....

waiting lounge, Riyadh terminal. ...i spy...who?

no, no... not a coach, its a train. I can tell.

glazed windows.

that place outside looks really deserted. ( haha ). ( pun ).

sink in the bathroom didn't have water.

boring..... immeasurably.

Khobar corniche.

the return train. back at Riyadh terminal. Alhamdulillah.

early morning

I thought I'd do maths today, early morning, straight after Fajr, but the morning atmosphere was so beautiful I thought I must share it with you, so I wrote:

" Isa is sitting alone in the dining room, early morning, the sky has just turned from purple to blue, and the cool air comes mildly through the dining room windows, and the cockerel's voice comes in sharply, and together they make it feel like a fresh morning all to myself; as I do maths.

And the morning is awake now, as I am, and I feel we're the only two awake - there goes the cockerel again - . Some of my sisters are reading in bed, maybe Enid Blyton's books, which take you on wonderful trips through stormy and adventurous weather and events.

But she never described a morning like this, and if she did maybe I missed it and didn't catch what she meant, or she missed the desert morning and caught an England morning instead; which is just as beautiful, and usually comes with a newspaper and a nice breakfast and orange juice, or tea.

Sometimes our morning comes with a wonderful breakfast too. mostly it doesn't. So people don't really bother about the desert morning, they just sleep through this this beautiful quietness.

I got to do maths now.

Isa."

Stay up one morning by yourself, when everyone goes back to sleep, and relax and enjoy the morning, wherever you are. ( preferably with a cup of coffee ).