Beware: kids and roos crossing!

I was sorting through our Australian holiday snaps this morning and had to share this photo, taken at a school crossing. I'm not sure how the lollipop lady copes with the kangaroos, but I'm sure she does her best...

Letter from Oz

Apologies for the long silence. We are in Brisbane and I have been preoccupied with the annual family catch-up. This week we've been on the beautiful North Stradbroke Island, one of several sand islands just off the Brisbane coast, with spectacular beaches, great surf, dolphins, whales and the odd shark.

A woman was taken by a shark here in recent years swimming with her dog at dusk in murky water. All the rules broken at once: don't swim at dusk (feeding time) with a dog (lots of splashing) in water where you can't see the bloody great shark coming at you. If attacked, Ian assures me, the thing to do is biff the blighter in the snout with all your might. Uncertain as to whether I would have the presence of mind to do anything other than wait to be swallowed, I avoid the surf and what lies beneath, to the amusement of my more gung-ho Aussie relatives.

Frankly, I think it's quite healthy to have a fear of all things deadly. As well as sharks, I am also terrified of encountering poisonous spiders and venomous snakes - and let's face it, Australia has more than its fair share of these nasties. When I lived here, I spent the first few weeks religiously shaking out my shoes each morning to dislodge any lurking scorpions. Ian nearly split his sides laughing at me when he found out and I suppose he was right to point out that any scorpions were unlikely to scale three stories of an inner city apartment building and end up in my work shoes. But you can never be too careful...

So it felt rather brave to suggest a bush walk the other day - five kilometres or so to the freshwater Blue Lake in the middle of the island. "We may even spot a koala or two," I told the girls, although my eyes were firmly on the ground searching for snakes. I should have been checking out the tree trunks as we rounded a corner and spotted this staring at us:

Now I know it's not deadly, but it had a steely prehistoric glare that was quite unnerving all the same. Undaunted, we trudged on through the bush, forded the odd stream

passed some very odd looking plants

until we reached the lake.

We found a spot by the shore to eat, our only companions two council workers and a group of overly-amorous German backpackers.

As we were tucking into our lunch and I was pondering why sarnies Downunder always have to include a giant slab of beetroot, the council workers came over shaking a large, half-full plastic bag.

"Youse eat prawns?" they inquired. "Goddem off a mate's boat in Amity this mornin'. We can't eat 'em all. Youse can 'ave 'em if you want."

Ian did want and as the workers ambled off, I reflected life must be pretty good for them on Straddie - fresh prawns for lunch, surfing after work before heading to their house with a sea-view (now worth squillions thanks to the influx of townies wanting second homes) and just time for a quick stubbie and some footie-watching with their mates before their Sheila tells them grub's up. No wonder Ian's looking wistful. It might be time to come home.

Dinner at the Embassy

We were invited to dinner last weekend, at the British Embassy no less; a smallish casual gathering with people the Ambassador and his wife would like to see more of - yikes!

I should explain that neither Ian nor I have previously socialised with the Ambassadorial couple. No, the reason for the invitation was Olivia, who is at school with the Ambassador's daughter and has been on a couple of play-dates at the Embassy and has obviously made a bit of an impression.

"What's an Ambassador?" asked Isabelle when I told her and Olivia of our new, improved social standing.

"Well" Olivia began, "K's dad does all the Queen's work in Bahrain when she can't be here. They live in the Queen's house and her dad makes all the Queen's important decisions for her. Oh, and they have cannons at their front door and royal toilets."

"Really? I must check those out!" I said.

"Yes" she continued, "and they are really lucky because they have one dog and two cats and they used to have two hamsters, but the cat ate one. It's OK though, because the hamster belonged to K and not the Queen so they don't have to tell her."

Well, thank goodness for that! We wouldn't have wanted K's dad ending up in the Tower before the weekend!

Local fashion

From spices to jewellery and shoes to singing camels, you can find just about anything in Bahrain's souks. I was after some buttons, so headed down to the area with all the tailors and clothing shops. I thought you might enjoy these photos of local fashions.

Motherhood: passing on knowledge

It's week 15 of The Gallery run by Tara over at Sticky Fingers and this week's theme is Motherhood.

I gave up lots of things when I became a mother: a career, sleep, going to the toilet unaccompanied. But I also discovered that one of the greatest joys of motherhood is passing on knowledge to your offspring and seeing them learn about and enjoy the same things you do.

I love sport, particularly ski-ing. So for this week's theme, here is a piccie of me passing on my ski-ing knowledge to Olivia (then aged 3).

No Sex in this City...or is there?

It looks like I'll have to wait until I'm back in the UK or Oz to catch up with the latest exploits of Carrie and friends. Warner Brothers have no plans to release the new Sex and the City movie in any country in the Middle East. So although Sex and the City 2 is supposedly set in Abu Dhabi (the producers were in fact denied permission to film in the Emirate and went to Morocco instead) no-one there will be able to watch it.

This is not surprising. Film censorship in the Gulf is very strict, with no kissing, sex scenes, nudity or bad language being allowed on screen. Films are cut as couples are about to embark on some amorous encounter and resume the next morning when they are fully dressed for breakfast. I took the girls to see the new Shrek film this weekend and the censors had even cut Shrek giving Fiona true love's kiss. Of course this can make some films very disjointed and, in the case of Sex and the City, presumably very short.

And while Bahrain is considered one of the more liberal countries in the Gulf, open displays of sexuality are frowned upon. Women are supposed to dress modestly and cover their heads. Most wear the traditional abaya (black floor-length cloak). Couples are rarely seen walking hand in hand or with their arms round each other and (thankfully) snogging in public is an absolute no-no. Things are significantly stricter across the water in Saudi where a court this week sentenced a man to four months in prison and 90 lashes for "engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers". He was caught on camera kissing and hugging a woman in a mall.

So I was extremely surprised to read this week that Bahrain has a sex shop, run by Khadija Ahmed, a Bahraini lady dressed in abaya and headscarf. Her "Khadija Fashion House" (use of the word sex in the shop name would be forbidden) sells a wide range of lingerie, creams to delay male orgasm and sex toys. Islamic scholars have said sex toys are legitimate if used by married couples, although Islam bans the replication of sensitive parts of the body so vibrators are forbidden. Vibration rings, however, are apparently fine. Mrs Ahmed claims her shop helps keep marriages on track and discourages extra-marital affairs.

Judging by the ensuing letters to the local paper, I was not the only person rather taken aback by the shop's existence. One reader using the pseudonym Loyal Bahraini raged about how such shops would corrupt the minds of the younger generation. "Marriage is not about lust" she wrote and "...these products are suitable for countries like Taiwan and Thailand, which have a large uneducated population" but not for Bahrain. Loyal Bahraini has clearly not heard of political correctness.

It seems this is not a view shared by all. Mrs Ahmed's shop has been so successful she is now considering opening another branch in Bahrain and outlets in Dubai and Lebanon.

Bretto's Bar, Athens

I've decided to participate in The Gallery again, run by Tara over at Sticky Fingers. This week's theme is Still Life.

The photo is of the interior of this great bar we found in Athens when we were there over Easter. A simple, inexpensive yet effective interior design scheme!