I received it twice. Once from Moodscope and once from a friend.
It caught me off guard a little, because it captured everything that I think about New Years Eve/Day. I could try and explain it or I could just copy paste it and let you read...
So. Here goes...
Resolution is not a lovely word.
If it was able to walk, I can see it sludging along the road with teenage
attitude. (Yes I may have invented a word...)
A re-solution. Nah. Not for me thank you kindly.
It somehow smacks of duty and negativity and we are really after something
inspiring, something that dances, something that makes your insides go
"AWYEAH" (that's "OHYES" for anyone who isn't Scottish).
And in any case, I just don't feel like starting afresh on the first day of the
year.
That makes me feel free. Shrug off the 'new year resolution' mantle and release
from "will", "try", "hope to", "can't",
"should", "must", and all the others. Us LowLifes are
constantly battling and running with change. We assess and reassess our
feelings, attitudes, responses and actions on a daily basis, maybe hourly,
perhaps every ten minutes and sometimes in the same thought and on either side
of a doughnut! Why would we throw another tractor tyre onto the pile for our
personal Strongest Man competition?
Be free my friends. Be.
Because when we are ready to make our next move in our little tete-a-tete with
this unwelcoming, hostile and rigorous attack from our black dogs, our shadows,
our scary monsters, our illnesses...we will. January has nothing to do with it.
Be free my friends and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you
step back, it's not a fail, it's a dance move and, from there, there is a
natural momentum to go forward again. NOTE... The above is attributed to a Moodscope member called "Dances With Wolvesin The Room Above The Garage". Although I like them, they are not my words... I own no copyright.
You see, if his wish was to come true, the rest of my life
would be spent getting up at 6:45am, getting to work by 8am and going through the
processes of writing letters to support casual labour travelling to Jubail,
preparing and presenting my payroll returns, starting the 2015 financial
forecasting process and compiling invoices.
It wasn’t a bad day, but even Roy Wood would struggle to get
an upbeat lyric out of it.
Christmas passed me by this year. I knew that it would. As
you would expect from a country that only recognises Islam as a religion and –
theoretically – punishes public shows of other faiths, not many people were
waving the tinsel or dressing their trees.
And I didn’t miss it.
It’s not that I dislike Christmas. I don’t. But it would
feel a little odd in this environment to crave it. On Thursday (as I shall
forever know it…) it was a beautiful sunny day, perhaps hitting 24C. To me, it
couldn’t have been less Christmassy.
“But sunshine and heat don’t mean you can’t celebrate”, I
hear you say.
I know. I’ve seen the pictures and heard friends tell tales
of their Christmas celebrations in Australia, South Africa and across the
southern hemisphere. I get it, but the difference between those and the
environment that I live in is that they will have been prepared and readied to
celebrate. In the weeks before they cooked shrimps on the beach, the TV and
media would be cranking the celebration up. The economy would ramp up sales.
You’d struggle not to see the classic northern European imagery of dressed
trees, stars, Santa Claus, supermarket queues and credit card/debt
consolidation adverts.
Aside a single tree and tragic gold, plastic bells above a
bar in Bahrain, I had none of that.
The closest that retail got to celebrating the season were a
couple of shop displays:
The first was a women’s fashion store where all the window
display mannequins were surrounded by cotton wool snow, with icy blue stars and
glitter.
The second was a banner stand at Seattle Coffee Shop
encouraging me to “add some warmth to the season” by purchasing hot chocolate
in mugs dressed in little cardigans, topped with whipped cream and flavoured
with salted caramel, hazelnut or peppermint. The image on their banner stand
was all muted, warm reds, earthy browns with a blurred open fire burning in the
distance.
Winter… Not Christmas.
I saw this last Sunday night. It was still 20C…
It’d had been 24+C all day.
But – despite the above - I did make a personal effort to
mark the event.
A can of Barr’s Cream Soda purchased at LuLu and a Chicken
Tikka Masala for my tea with my colleague, Andy. Two traditional British dishes…
Last time I wrote, you may recall that I was missing London
and UK life. The blog appeared to be my version of wearing red sparkly shoes,
clicking my heels and saying:
“There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home”.
It was as if I was having Boxing Day UKTV flashbacks.
But, the feeling has passed. As I knew it could and would.
My company has a new starter making his first visit to
Saudi. I found myself in the position to be the expert; to be the person to
show him the ropes. And this encouraged me to look at all the positives in the
ex-pat life and allowed the opportunity to revisit places that I had been
ignoring for a few weeks.
Despite Andy bringing me a cold from Scotland that knocked
me out for a couple of days, all has been good.
Trawling the Souks in Al Khobar looking at the sports and
electronics shops, gently picking his jaw up from the floor and fixing it back
in place once he realised how cheap it all is.
Of discovering which side of Glasgow he is from when he
refused the green shopping basket I offered, preferring the blue. Touring my beloved LuLu, chuckling at the lay out, collating photos of the "not" booze section. Laughing at the random brands that make it over from the UK.
Demonstrating that you should never order a starter at the
same time as a main course in a restaurant because it leads to a slow
procession of food in orders that you cannot comprehend…
“Yeah, thanks for all the food. But we got this far without
the rice… not sure we can manage all that”
“Oh. Thanks. We’d forgotten the squid dish… nice of you to
bring it with the change.”
Yeah. I exaggerate. But not much…
Today, I got chatting to a couple of Filipino guys
photographing birds down by the coast. They were visiting from Riyadh. They
were telling me how lucky I am to be based in Al Khobar. The coast, a more
open/liberal outlook… less desert. Another Indian marketeer I allowed to queue
jump in LuLu this afternoon (I’m a nice guy) was celebrating our ability to
escape to Bahrain with relative ease.
It all vocalised what I had been thinking over the past
couple of weeks. I’m blessed. Lucky. I live in a decent town, with a wonderful
winter climate. The people are broadly friendly and open. It feels safe and – whilst
it could be cleaner – it is beautiful. With the exception of “Bastard the Cat”,
even the strays are good company.
Al Khobar - Where I go to remember and reflect on my luck... Palm Trees. Flamingoes. Gulls. Herons and a bridge to Bahrain on the horizon.
NB – I have met many, many friendly strays while I have been
here. Most notably, two cats at my office named Trevor and Gary. “Bastard the
Cat” lives on the street outside my apartment. He is so named because of the
bite to the left leg incident.
The church has a blue, grey spire and a red light atop that
guides planes to Northolt.
As a child I could see this church on a hill from my bedroom
window. Across the sports pitches and park, beyond the council flats and above
the grey gasometer, it sat looking back at me as I daydreamed. Staring into
space it would stare back at me.
I recall an incident from when I was eight or nine driving
back from a holiday. My brother – being three and a half years older and
therefore being far smugger – ripped me apart when I confidently told the whole
car that I could see Harrow Hill on the horizon despite only being half an hour
into a trip home from Wales. That is my only memory of that happening, but I am
assured by my mother that I would often look for or claim to see the church on
the hill in counties all across England and Wales. I would look for it. Hope
for it, even.
St Mary’s Church on Harrow Hill was a geographic comfort
blanket for me.
It was obviously something that I sought solace in.
Something permanent that meant safety and home.
If you knew which window to look out of, you could just
about make the church out from the flat that I have left behind me in South
Harrow. The flat that is built close to the site of the old gasomter. I didn’t
buy it for that view – although I fell in love with the view of Bentley Priory
three miles to the North the moment I saw it – but in my heart, I was still so
happy that I could see it.
St Mary’s still has a hold over me.
A Church on a Hill
And not much has changed in me since I was that nine year
old kid. I still like stability. I am not a risk taker.
So homesickness was inevitable.
But I planned as best I could. I kept talking to people back
home, I had my Saudi Fridge of friendship, threw myself onto Instagram and kept
recording. I started this account. All actions to try and warn it off. But, it
was going to happen eventually. CLICK HERE FOR SHAMELESS PLUG TO MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
The Latest Version of my Saudi Fridge of Friendship
When it came it took me surprise and it hit me hard. Last
week, I would have done anything not to be in Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain or the
UAE. Any of them… The other Monday, I was in all three at one point or another
but I was yearning for home.
I yearned for London. I yearned for grey skies and twig
trees and rain and cold.
But mostly, I yearned to be closer to my friends.
I’m hardly the first to have had this feeling. I won’t be
the last but it is something that I have never ever encountered. Having lived
almost exclusively in London and trips/time away has always seemed holiday
like, I cannot recall a time of spending more than say three weeks away from
home. As I type I am reaching close to three months. One quarter of my contract
is done, I am planning my first return to the UK and home is in focus.
The catalyst, I guess, was seeing a friend for the weekend
over in Dubai. Alex travelled out and linked up with me after I had been to a
conference out there. We had some pints, explored, chatted life and bollocks.
We laughed. All was good. But it put my isolation into perspective.
I know that I am not alone. Certainly not as isolated as I
imagined that I would be. I’m lucky that I live in the same block as “Special K”
my friend and occasional boss. Colleagues pass through for a few days at a
time. I’ve got to know a few faces for a chat and find Al Khobar friendly and welcoming
but none of this is the same as being able to pick up the phone half hour
before the end of a shift and arrange to meet “whoever”.
Alex sent me a great email a few days later that explained
how pleased he was to see me. That I appeared the happiest and most positive
that he had seen me in years. He spoke of regret of missed opportunities and of
looking at opportunities to step away from London himself. He told me of two
incidents he had had in his first twenty four hours of being hassled by
beggars. And still, I wanted to be nowhere else than London!
In the background, work was becoming stressful for reasons
to dull to explain. I caught myself getting emotionally drawn into the issues and
taking things way out of my control quite personally, rather than standing back
and just “dealing” with them. I know of old, that this is a path best avoided.
There be dragons and shadows over my right shoulder controlling my mood if I
let that happen. All in; not a good week.
For the first time in years, though, I was fully aware of
everything going on around me as it happened. I was maintaining control. And I
sought my own route to get myself back in order. Time. Space. Sleep. Sunshine…
I shook myself down and sought comfort in literature, music
and friends… Thanks, as ever, to Mr Dent for the chat and Helena T for the cup
of tea x.
I found myself down by the sea at dusk last Sunday. The sun
setting behind me. The sea, smooth and calm rippling over the rocks at my feet.
As the light disappears the sea gets darker shades of grey, pink and blue. It’s
warm. I’m wearing a tee shirt. It’s December.
Dusk
I’m thinking about everything that I have achieved this last
year. Of heading out to the Middle East, of agreeing to live in an Islamic
country where so many of my own personal beliefs have to be parked up on a
daily basis to survive. Of facing up to my own unhappiness. Of changing career.
Of stepping away from the dull, throbbing, soulless, thankless routine of my
previous role to step outside my personal comfort zone to achieve it’s goals. Of
succeeding in that change. Thinking about the stress – the ongoing, endless,
hopeless stress – of renting my flat. Of leaving my parents and the fear
associated…
Not too bad for someone who is risk adverse.
Above me, swifts darted, whirled and danced through the sky.
Chattering.
And the sound took me back to summer evenings around dusk in
Rayners Lane. Of listening to the same noise from the same birds swooping above
the garden I could see from my childhood home’s bedroom window. And it made me
think about the church on a hill with a grey, blue spire and a red light atop
guiding planes to Northolt.
A year isn’t a long time. The World is quite a small place
if you think about it. Even for a boy from the suburbs of London.
Pulling the ice axe from my leg
I staggered on
Spindrift stinging my remaining eye
I finally managed to reach the station
Only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down
After wondering to myself whether or not it should actually be
called a train replacement service
I walked out onto the concourse and noticed the giant screen seemed to have
been tampered with
Probably by a junior employee
Disgruntled commuters were being regaled with some dismal TVM
Involving a tug-of-love-custody-battle
Stockard Channing held sway
Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without
due care or attention
I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette
i.e sidle out of the store gingerly
Embrace the margin
Fat kids with sausage rolls
Poor sods conducting polls
There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets
I try to put everything into perspective
Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways
This works for a while
But then I encounter Primark FM
Overhead a rainbow appears
In black and white
...
I got a letter from Stringy Bob:
“Still on suicide watch
Screws not happy
Spotted a Marsh Fritillary during Association
Was roundly ignored
What news you?”
I felt sorry for him
He’d only been locked up for public nuisance offences
One of which saw him beach combing the Dee Estuary
Found a dead wading bird
Took it home, parcelled it up, and sent it off to the rubber-faced irritant
Phil Cool
With a note inside which read: “Is this your Sanderling?”
Another time saw him answering an advert in the music press
“Keyboard player required: Doors, Floyd, etc.
Must be committed, no time wasters”
You can guess the rest
I’d always imagined he would simply wander off some day into the
hills
To be found months later
His carcass stripped by homeless dogs
His exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow
I folded away the letter and put it in my inside pocket
All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark
May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob
Shite Day
I do believe it’s National Shite Day
It all points to National Shite Day
Someone’s declared it National Shite Day
Shite Day
My birthday! On National Shite Day
No bog roll, it’s National Shite Day
Cue drum roll, it’s National Shite Day
I find it a shame that such wonderful lyrics get wrapped up and hidden in a song with such a shite title (pun intended).
You can argue that most of HMHB's lyrics are casual and throw away and many are, but for what ever reason, I have always found the ones above inspiring and beautiful.
