Foiled Ghantooting

Another weekend past, and I have spent most of today doing precisely bugger all. Sam is off, and the boy IM had yet another unspecified family crisis. Either he is the unluckiest man in the world or... I'm an evil person for doubting the veracity of his claims. When I have to ask where he is and there's suddenly a crisis, I don't think I'm being too evil.

So, le weekend. Thursday night was rather amusing - drove up to Ghantoot, half way to Abu Dhabi, with Simon, eating schwarmas and assorted junk food, which meant we nearly missed our turn off. Met up with Fintan and his crowd, half lovely, half less so, and realized that our lot were properly woosing out. Stayed up till about 3am chatting and laughing with these wonderous new folks, then decided to go to bed - circle of about 9 tents on the beach, Simon & I had inflatable blow up mattresses - except mine was double story and therefore way cooler - so we were sleeping under the stars with all our stuff in our tent. Woke up very comfy with a strange noise in my ears, so decided to pop my face out of my very cosy double sleeping bag to investigate. Nearly lost half my skin in the process, apparently a shamal (sandstorm) had hit about two hours earlier, and I was sleeping under a small pile of sand which had gathered over my sleeping bag. During my very quick discovery peek, I also realized there were now two tents instead of nine - one was ours, and it was most definitely flat, and one was Ed's which was also flat, but still contained Ed. Most of them had packed up and driven back to Dubai (not sure how they were sober enough but anyway), apart from Ed, Fintan&Neva, Bianca, Graham & us. Apparently Fintan & Neva had slept on the porch of one of the 5k a night bungalows that line the beach, and been woken by the maid - we're so classy...

So the upshot was, no wakeboarding, which had been the whole point. Randomly then bumped in to Pippa, who was a mate of Miki's who we knew in KSA - haven't seen her for a good couple of years. She was out surfing (again - random) and had chosen this mini little beach bar out of the whole of the Emirates. Teeny world syndrome...

After a rather welcome full english breakfast (not random at all in a sandstorm?!) we pottered back to Dubai, which was all blue skies and not a breath of air, and got in the pool, where we stayed for most of the rest of the day.

He conjured up pints of spicy Bloody Marys, followed by a Tropical Pimms concoction, including passion fruit, and the Hesk came round to partake... Simon had bought the Sunday Times, and I think we managed to drop all of the sections in the pool over the course of the day. However, the Times is made of sterner stuff, and you can still read it if you fish it out with due care and attention. Good to know, I thought. Rustled up a beef bourginon in the evening and Andy joined us, then we hit BarNasty, through force of habit more than anything else.

Pottered down to Festival City on Saturday and didn't achieve much else, it looks rather like the new city center in Manchester. Which is a bit random really. Also went and saw Mr Irwin and poked at his stitches in his head, trying to measure how high his bump sticks out of his skull. Verdict - not terribly high but unsurprisingly this wasn't the most scientific of measurements as he batted me away quite quickly.

Car still filled with sand from the weekend and half my belongings still round at Simon's - however, getting dodgy looks for blogging so might have to stop. I suppose it is half way through the day, but it's just one of those funny overcast days where it should be cold and I should be under a duvet watching tv. Boot camp was evil again this morning, and I'm failing to understand why I'm putting myself through this, but its got to pay off in the end, so I'm sticking with it. In other news... i won a virgin premium economy ticket to london the other day - completely randomly, so may head london-wards for a visit. Need to work in some training so might tie it all in together, we shall have to see.