I just finished eating some very strange tempura vegetables from the Japanese restaurant close to my hotel, following a 2 hour long walk along the corniche. The vegetables included a giant piece of raw onion and the end of a green pepper. I feel a little ill.

The cats were out in force tonight. I was hoping I could replace my missing pet pigeons with a couple of kittens. I’m sure if I had food I could have coaxed an entire troop of them back to my room. They’re everywhere!

I turned on the television when I got home for the first time in so long. Oh my goodness it was dismal. Despite the fact that most of the channels were in Arabic, the most interesting channel was probably the Italian one. I closed my eyes and tried imagining I was somewhere in Italy, but the smell of tempura and the noise from the nightclub made me feel like I was in an Asian/Italian fusion disco. I ended up watching the most horrendous program called ‘Married to Jonas’. At the beginning I couldn’t figure out who Jonas was, and even when I did, it was so extraordinarily awful I sat there with my mouth agape in some kind of zombie trance. I had to force myself to take control of the remote and switch it off to preserve my remaining brain cells. I’ve decided from this point forward I shall refrain from switching it on ever again.

It’s now the next day and I’ve just come back from the beach where we’re hosting part of our event. It’s not every job you get to spend the morning walking along the sand. It’s one of the few perks I planned early in the day before the sun melted me into the ground. While I waited for the driver outside the office to pick me up, I was watching a host of oddly shaped planes take off from the airport next door. An old style army helicopter, and something that looked like a mix between a blimp and a jet flew by. You never quite know what you’re going to see over here, I was just disappointed I didn’t have my camera at the ready!