christmas, birthdays and all that

I'm another year older. A year ago I hadn't imagined myself celebrating my birthday 10,000 kms from home, I hadn't imagined having 5 waiters come to my table carrying a tiny cake with candle and singing 'happy birthday' and I hadn't imagined dining with new friends. The other things I hadn't imagined were manifold, amongst them the increasing saggy-baggyness of my skin, my increasingly drooping eyelids and the increasing number of wrinkles. To be fair though, I am sitting at my computer with strong morning uplight reflecting my face onto the screen in front of me. Frankly I'd rather not have to be looking at it!

Christmas has come and gone. We had a lovely Christmas dinner with half a dozen of our neighbours. The hosts went all out. The table and dining room were beautifully decorated in red and green with sparklies all around, the food and drink were top notch and the company was wonderfully engaging. Christmas day itself was topped and tailed by other 'does' around and about the place. It's been a lovely few days.

I ventured off to the zoo with my students on Christmas day. We had a ball.

The bird show is always a highlight. It was quite up close and personal as there were only 14 of us. Later some of the girls were even brave enough, after a few minutes, to have snakes dangling from their arms. Unfortunately it's not appropriate to take pics of the girls, so I didn't get many shots. This is the largest falcon in the UAE.

Now the New Year is almost upon us. My plan for this year is simply to survive another year reasonably intact. That's not so ambitious and should be achievable.

On a completely different note, we had pizza for lunch the other day and later ventured out into the laneway at back. I spotted a room full of sheesha pipes with these three out the front in the process of being cleaned.