I was drying my face this morning when something fell out of the towel and landed with a loud PLOP in the bin. Looking down I saw a large, fat gecko, acting like a bike on a Wall of Death, it took 2 laps around the inside of the bin, and launched itself off, out, and up the wall. It scuttled off somewhere else, obviously to make me jump again when I come across it unexpectedly later today.
I'm now back in Muscat after a too short visit to mum and dad's in UK. The highlight of the return trip was that I got a ride in one of the buggies to the gate at Heathrow, all flashing lights and annoying bleeping noise. I never realised how fast they can go and was quite worried I would fall out on some of the down slopes. I had to take the buggy as I'm recovering pathetically slowly from the op, and still find it difficult to walk distances and take stairs. Am I the only one who thinks that it was gross to be given a video of the surgery? I can watch tv shows like ER, but to see inside myself... ugh. Back to travelling, I have to say, with the exception of the ground crew on arrival at Heathrow, all the BA staff were fantastic, especially both flight crews.
I finished the novel set in the Arctic Circle yesterday. It was a bit strange, but because dad & I had watched a documentary on the Sami reindeer herders the evening I started the book, and a big part of the novel was set around the Sami community and their herding, it gave the book some sense. This morning I started an autobiography, Days of Obligation: An argument with my Mexican father by Richard Rodriguez, a mestizo writer who compares his Mexican origins with life in America; sort of an anthropological study humanised. His prose is great and after a few "easy reads" these last few weeks, it is nice to read something well written.
Finally another shock, last October a colony of Omani bees set up home on the doorframe of my kitchen terrace. They stayed all through winter, and kept expanding the hive, despite my being told they would only stay a few months. Then, suddenly last month, 90% of them left for a new terrace, with the stragglers leaving whilst I was in hospital. This morning, due to wasps eating the cone, the hive was knocked down and a very nice surprise... At the top of the hive, they had left honey! I now have a container of my own Omani honey yum. Sx
