What i really missed..

Now that spring is well and truly upon us I am discovering that what I really missed in the UAE was getting my hands dirty. Yesterday's marathon stint in the neglected back garden left me with dirt up to the elbows and a potent mix of crushed slug, worm and centipede pieces under my fingernails. Weeding and pulling up the dead stuff inevitably raises pieces of broken Victorian glass or china and there are always some new plants that have been blown in from elsewhere. We also discovered that the fox who spends most sunny mornings asleep in our neighbour's garden, actually lives behind our fence.


Despite compulsive itinerancy resulting in various stages upon which to play the global village idiot, my basic Britishness is confirmed.whenever I commune with my back garden The springtime delight of looking out every morning to see what new bud or blossom or bird or insect has appeared, never fades with time and this spring there was the added excitement of the compost. After two years of festering untouched, what we pulled out of the compost bin was so rich and lovely I could only feel deeply sorry that I wasn't a plant.

Of course this doesn't mean that I didn't look at all the coverage of Art Dubai but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. As always, the majoarity consisted of the hagiographic delights of the local press, with a smattering of largely usual international suspects. Sharjah seems to have upped its game generating an impressive amount of column inches for the new Al Maraya Foundation and Barjeel Art Collectiion but I couldn't find any new writers or new points of view. The most disappointing thing was the almost zero coverage of Al Bastakiya Art Fair. I did get a few live texts from friends visiting Art Dubai saying 'too much ****ing calligraphy' and 'don't think the Saudis have been this hot since Osama'...... which is arguably not funny, but it made me laugh!