How sad

How sad. I don’t know where you are on the republican to monarchist spectrum (and I’m somewhere in the middle), but you can’t argue with the fact that The Queen was an exemplary example of servant leadership. Anyone aspiring to positions where they have responsibility for others would do well to look to her approach. She set a standard and stuck to it.

One thankful outcome is that at least HM found the energy to see through the transition of PMs. I can’t imagine anything worse than His Borisness having anything to do with the mourning, funeral and coronation. In his short tenure he disrespected her – and all of us. The thought of him offering his opinion would turn my stomach. Horrible man. And an incredibly poor leader. Best gone … and forgotten. (and I won’t offer an opinion of Liz Truss – who was, originally, a republican, by the way. Ideologically we couldn’t be further apart, so I won’t like her policies. But she yet might make a half decent stab at the job. We’ll see.)

I love this photo of Henry seeing his dad for the first time in weeks

Anyhow. We’re here. What’s it like? Well, it’s hot. A very dry and dusty 43c during the day and mid-30s at night. It will get cooler. Riyadh is a sprawling (smallish – 7 million) city built smack in the middle of the Arabian peninsula. Travel in any direction for more than half an hour and you’re in the rocky, sandy desert. The nearest coastline is east, about five hours drive. South and you hit the war zone which is Yemen. North, just more desert until you reach Jordan. West and you’ll need to do a Moses and part the Red Sea. We are a long way from anywhere.

And, noting that I do have to be careful about what I write as I value my hands, Riyadh is a building site. It’s v American, cut deep by 6-lane highways, packed full of people getting places by car. Everything is sand-coloured and three storey, accept for a few islands of tower block new builds. We not close to a Dubai landscape, but there is plenty of new, tasteful, Islamic architecture. Clearly money is not an issue. And goodness are there shops. C and I have been using the compound bus to take us out in the mornings. Each time a different mall, all of them as big and swanky as Cribbs. And we haven’t run out of options. If you worry that as a species we’ve become consumers rather than people, Riyadh exemplifies that. If you want to shop, you have oodles of choices. Anything else? Well, it’s too early to say, but I do feel that you’d need to get away during your breaks to walk in a park or visit a museum.

However, Bex and Steven’s compound, which is about the size of a small village, has everything you need. Each small group of houses faces onto a fab pool. There’s a v adequate gym (with four treadmills), tennis courts, squash courts, play parks, a decent grocers and a fab restaurant which is both inexpensive and has a wide menu. You could, arguably, stay here, take the bus to the shops, and never worry about anything. That’s not us, though.

I know … how lucky are we?

Bex and Steven love their school, which is good. And, after a few grizzly days when Henry was getting over his cold (might well have been covid – he’s still got a hacking cough), the young lad’s in fine form. The nanny is excellent although, bless her, for the first four days he was real trouble … and couldn’t deal with her when I was in the room. Thankfully, now that he’s better and she has shown her true colours, C and I come and go without a fuss.

And us? Well, we’re sort of rebooting. We both have throat and head colds, probably due to the air conditioning and dust. But we have run every day (weekends off), swum and helped out where we can. We have some plans, but I’ll leave those for later. My mum is settled, it seems. We’ve sorted out a Tesco order for her (via the carers to me) and, although I’ve only spoken to her twice, she seems in good form – thank goodness.

H slept a lot to begin with

So. Stay safe. Hopefully you’ve all had some rain and your garden’s are picking up. I miss the green already. But it won’t be long …