Communing with Nature, Etc.

Despite what Mr. Muscato refers to as "the bitter, bitter cold," we are tremendously enjoying, after our first few weeks of the Arabian summer, the simple opportunity to be outdoors here in the north.

Not, of course, that we mean the great outdoors in any sporty sense; not at all. We just mean things like sitting in a garden while having lunch.

Where, yesterday, we were joined by visitors. It's much harder, it seems, to photograph a bee than you might think.

At another café - this one overlooking a lock - another visitor. The sparrows are so tame as to be postively friendly. One sat at the edge of a plate yesterday, quite un-self-consciously joining in on bread and butter.

But of course all this nature is quite exhausting. We restored ourselves with a good long seige of nightlife, which varied from observing quite incredibly young people going mad at one establishment as if it were the first time they'd had the chance to sing along to cheesy 70s pop (as perhaps it was) to a distinctly more to our taste boite in which older and more respectable gentlemen - well, went mad at the oppotunity to sing along to cheesy 70s pop, this time under the direction of a large person dressed as Marlene Dietrich.

By the time this and more was all over, we had heard Abba's "Does Your Mama Know That You're Out?" at least six times, which meant it was more than time to go back in, which we did at a ridiculous (for us, at least) hour.