What is left of Cate is on its way to Saudi Arabia. She picked up a stomach bug in Cairo and saw nothing much on the last day except the inside of her bathroom in the hotel (she says it is very nice and now knows exactly how many tiles there are).
She is still not well but is soldiering on.
She has to wear an Abaya and a Niqab so that she doesn’t upset the locals. Apparently the sight of bare flesh of any type sends the religious police into a frenzy and they start flogging people (well….women anyway - these are men with serious issues).
They would be worn to a frazzle at Bondi Beach in summer.
Cate is making very sure that she stays modest and is wearing a suit under her Abaya (and possibly a Leopard skin leotard under that). This won’t be a problem as a cool change has swept through Riyadh and today it is only 36 degrees.
You can read a really astonishing story about uncovered women in Australia http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20646437-601,00.html
The world is certainly full of very strange people.
Cate has her own toilet in the office in Riyadh (which is just as well because she will probably be in there quite often).
She realised over the weekend that this was a terrible mistake and will never do anything like it again.
Because our air conditioning doesn’t work in the upstairs studies we have had to buy some portable units. We can only run these by partially opening the windows and running the exhaust hoses out through the gaps.
The gaps are very small and we thought that Sissi could not get out (Ha!).
She escaped on Saturday morning and I leapt out of bed in response to Cate’s shrieks. Sissi was standing on the ledge and I had to try to reach out through the opening (the windows only open partially) and grab her.
I succeeded only in making her move off the ledge and disappear from view.
I then had to open the skylight and crawl out onto the ledge (six floors above street level). Sissi was sitting on the roof a few metres away watching me with some sense of wonder.
Brandishing a tray of cat food I managed to get her close enough that I could grab her by the neck and swing her into the room to Cate.
A couple of neighbours down below on the other side of the street watched this with some interest.
Did I mention that I was naked?
The police did not come so I think I have gotten away on this occasion without a charge for Indecent Exposure.
The gaps have been plugged and we hope that soon we will have a permanent fix. Of course if Sissi continues to eat chicken the way she does there will not be a problem.
If there is ever a Chicken Eating Contest in Wien for cats (I know this is unlikely) Sissi will be a certain medallist.
Merisi sent me some links to photos she took near where we are going on our hiking weekend. She was too modest to put them on the Blog as comments but I have no such qualms. She has nothing to be modest about.
http://merisi.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-countryside.html
http://merisi.blogspot.com/2008/07/tales-from-mountains.html
My pep talk had only a temporary effect of the Australians and they were crushed in the last test and lost the Ashes series.
Fortunately there are no Poms here to rub my nose in this humiliating defeat – and the girls at Spar (fortunately) no nothing about cricket.
She is still not well but is soldiering on.
She has to wear an Abaya and a Niqab so that she doesn’t upset the locals. Apparently the sight of bare flesh of any type sends the religious police into a frenzy and they start flogging people (well….women anyway - these are men with serious issues).
They would be worn to a frazzle at Bondi Beach in summer.
Cate is making very sure that she stays modest and is wearing a suit under her Abaya (and possibly a Leopard skin leotard under that). This won’t be a problem as a cool change has swept through Riyadh and today it is only 36 degrees.
You can read a really astonishing story about uncovered women in Australia http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20646437-601,00.html
The world is certainly full of very strange people.
Cate has her own toilet in the office in Riyadh (which is just as well because she will probably be in there quite often).
She realised over the weekend that this was a terrible mistake and will never do anything like it again.
Because our air conditioning doesn’t work in the upstairs studies we have had to buy some portable units. We can only run these by partially opening the windows and running the exhaust hoses out through the gaps.
The gaps are very small and we thought that Sissi could not get out (Ha!).
She escaped on Saturday morning and I leapt out of bed in response to Cate’s shrieks. Sissi was standing on the ledge and I had to try to reach out through the opening (the windows only open partially) and grab her.
I succeeded only in making her move off the ledge and disappear from view.
I then had to open the skylight and crawl out onto the ledge (six floors above street level). Sissi was sitting on the roof a few metres away watching me with some sense of wonder.
Brandishing a tray of cat food I managed to get her close enough that I could grab her by the neck and swing her into the room to Cate.
A couple of neighbours down below on the other side of the street watched this with some interest.
Did I mention that I was naked?
The police did not come so I think I have gotten away on this occasion without a charge for Indecent Exposure.
The gaps have been plugged and we hope that soon we will have a permanent fix. Of course if Sissi continues to eat chicken the way she does there will not be a problem.
If there is ever a Chicken Eating Contest in Wien for cats (I know this is unlikely) Sissi will be a certain medallist.
Merisi sent me some links to photos she took near where we are going on our hiking weekend. She was too modest to put them on the Blog as comments but I have no such qualms. She has nothing to be modest about.
http://merisi.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-countryside.html
http://merisi.blogspot.com/2008/07/tales-from-mountains.html
My pep talk had only a temporary effect of the Australians and they were crushed in the last test and lost the Ashes series.
Fortunately there are no Poms here to rub my nose in this humiliating defeat – and the girls at Spar (fortunately) no nothing about cricket.
