Fruit Salad

… it’s what I’ve just had for lunch. My experiments in self-restraint and portion control have been aided today by my fruit salad containing about half a kilo of papaya. Cue retching noises and curled lip expression. I don’t get it, why would anyone like papaya? Then again, I feel pretty much the same about mango. I now have a tin hat on to take the flak from aghast and outraged Australians. Anyone would they they invented the bloody things the way they clank on about them… Hello Australia. You know I think you're lovely.

I’m struggling with the healthy eating thing here but I’m not giving up. Yesterday I signed up to a health club at one of the fancy local hotels, so that I can use the gym. Of course I made full use of my membership immediately by flinging myself on to a sunbed and launching into my book for an afternoon’s seaside reading with my toes dug into the sand. Turned out that the desert had separate ideas and decided to whip up a sandstorm. I was ok on the beach but a little inland, everything was being bullied by super strong, unpleasantly gritty winds. My car was covered in sand and I was filled with gloom at the prospect of having to stop off and have it tickled with dusters for a small eternity before having it washed – prevents the paintwork from being scratched y’see.

Nature had other plans about my car’s well-being, in a good way. I woke up this morning and it was still dark. “strange” thinks I, whilst nibbling at some low fat porridge oats. I looked out of the window (only wearing pants – it was still dark, I felt like dallying with danger) to ponder when the sun would rise and discovered that a heavy bank of cloud had descended over the city. Weird! When I left the building to go to my car a fine mist was drifting about. Weirder! By the time I got to my car, big fat, extremely wet drops of rain were splashing all over the place and I was soaked.

The concept of drainage here is one that hasn’t ever really occurred to anyone so the rain water that was pelting down for an hour lay in enormous lakes all over the roads and made driving treacherous. Drivers here don’t have the first idea of road safety anyway so no-one slowed down to less then 140kph, hence the 4 serious accidents I saw on my journey. It made me feel extremely edgy, attempting to drive safely whilst everyone else threw caution to the wind (and rain) and ended up in ditches, through concrete barriers or rolled onto their sides in smoking, twisted metal disasters – all of which I saw today.

On the up side. On arrival at work, my car was absolutely sparkling!

Irritatingly, my shiny wet car was then exposed to sandy gusts of wind, and by home time had turned from glossy black to dusty beige. Pah!

BUT. My journey home was lifted by “Beat Surrender” by The Jam on the radio and an absolutely corking sunset. I felt positively smiley.