Nick Hardcastle

The Al Malam water tower has been under construction now for well over a year. The construction has been rather slow. Until this week. The huge structure at the top of the tower was on the ground this time last week. It was quite a surprise to see it so high up the tower. Goodness knows how it got there.

I parked next to the Chula Mall. Well actually the Mall burned down years ago. Now there is just an area of derelict land, a sparse forest of concrete stumps and rusting re-bar. Still, if you mention the Chula Mall to people here they know just where you mean.

We were heading towards Speedcash for the painful monthly ritual of sending money home. Painful because of the strength of the pound. The exchange rate is SR7.5 this week. LuAnne stopped the traffic, flashing her ankles and a smiling at the drivers, her red hair blowing in the wind. Well, I think that is why the first driver stopped. It could have been my legs of course, but that would be vain. As we stepped from the curb there was a screech and a bang. Only the first car stopped.

I’m not sure what the correct etiquette is when you have caused an accident, but I am certain that we were out of order. We smiled weakly at the driver, raised our hands in thanks and walked on. I still feel bad about it.

This Hoopoe was on campus this morning. We don’t see them here very often. Wrong lens as usual, of course.
RSPB Site

Climbing in Yangshuo, China.

I had a blowout on the way to school on Saturday. I recognized the sound of the flat tire immediately. It brought back memories of my first ever flat tire, some 18 years ago. On that occasion, as I drove away from the climbing wall in Bradford, I thought the car was making very funny noises. Never really being of a practical bent, my way of dealing with car problems depended more on the means of detection rather than the diagnosis. If, for example, I smelt burning, I would open the window. If there was a strange noise, I would put the radio on, or just ask the passenger to get out. On the occasion of my first puncture, I turned the radio up. With a completely flat tire though, it becomes pretty obvious that something is wrong once you have picked up speed, however loud The Jam are playing. Eventually I pulled up at the side of the road.

Changing the tire on that occasion took quite some time. I found the tools in the boot but having no idea where to put the jack, had to sit in the car reading the manual. That problem solved I went back into the boot to get the spare. It wasn’t there. I stared into the space where I had expected to find the tire, lifted the carpet, checked under the car itself, but there was nothing to be seen. Mystified, I returned to the manual and was redirected to the engine compartment. Feeling stupid I popped the lid. {What a great expression, must be American.) Well, that was my intention. Actually I just felt around the edge of the bonnet (English, much more evocative) trying to find a catch or lever that would open the thing. Back to the manual again. It must have taken me an hour and a half to change that wheel – a humiliating experience that I was glad nobody had been there to watch, al though a policeman on patrol around the ring road did stop twice to see if everything was OK.

On Saturday though, I am pleased to say, I showed rather more competence. Now I even know a trick to budge a recalcitrant wheel (you bash it with the spare tire and it ejects as if by magic). With LuAnne’s help we were back on the road again in six minutes. My tire was shredded, with a two-inch gash in the tire wall that went right through.

I walked around Al Khobar with my camera this afternoon looking for photographs. I couldn’t find anything that interested me apart from the long queues of Asian workers waiting by the foreign remittance offices. I felt very self-conscious as I walked passed – everybody turned towards me. They were bored and it is unusual to see a white man in Al Khobar these days.

The exchange rates have been getting progressively worse for many of the expatriates here in Saudi – those paid in Riyals and without homes in the US at least. It was SR5.5 or better to the Pound Sterling when I came here seven years ago. The Riyal hit a low of SR7.5 this week. I don’t know how the Peso has been fairing but perhaps that is why the Filipina maids have put up their fees by five Riyals to SR20 an hour. That has caused some distress on our compound. The fact that they have been charging SR15 for years doesn’t seem to bother anybody. I wonder how people adjust to life without servants when they return to life in their own countries. For that matter, how will I?

I finished editing the photographs from the China Climb Expedition and finally posted the last of the galleries on the school website. The photo here is from Yangshuo market.

Links to the galleries for the China Climb expedition can be found here: Gallery index