A tinge of blue on the edges

All goes well, in a sort of plodding type of a way, though there are niggles afoot which I can't quite put my finger on. I'm blaming Dubai, and my dire need to get away from it for a while, as is important in any long-term relationship. I'm yearning for wet leaves, and fresh wind, grey foamy seas and warm fires. I try and remind myself how much I hate the feel of wet wool, cold bones, and smelly armpits on the tube, and then I have a mental conversation with someone here and almost miss all those ridiculous things. I'm having January blues in Feb, it seems. I wonder if this is a trend for the rest of the year?

Spent last weekend in the desert, where my car decided to behave like a namby-pamby city vehickle, and just wimp around at the bottom of sand dunes. That's fine, at the bottom of a normal sand dune, but not so fine at the bottom of a bowl, which is lots of sand dunes joined together. Basically, the transmission is buggered, which is why it wasn't working, but if it was buggered on the way in, it was truly walking like a cowboy on the way out, after 4 of the guys had tried to get it out. We gave up, and i was on the phone to the insurance people trying to explain how to send the rescue vehicle to "the road between Hatta & Al Ain, sort of on the edge of the dunes, on the border with Oman." The two cities are about an hour and a half's drive apart. As I was on the phone, a small (4ft) Emirati man trotted over the dunes - from nowhere - and proceeded to chat to me in Arabic. I exhausted my phrasebook pretty early on (transmission isn't in said phrasebook) but understood "get in the car". He then razzed (a technical term, I understand) it out of the bowl, shifting manically and revving to about 7k. Scary shit, but it was out. As displayed in the picture. When I tried to drive it the next day, it went forward in reversed, drove in neutral, and wouldn't shift out of 3rd (it's automatic). Problem. Then had delightful fun explaining this in the service center.....

So that was that excitment. I could camp again this weekend, the team are off out with three cars and it would be really good to get a bit further in to the desert without feeling so rubbish about holding everyone back.

I just found out that someone is waiting for me at this networking event I thought I wasn't going to... whoops. A bientot.