Back in London

Its so good to be home! My roses have been blooming but unfortunately due to lack of care the quality of roses on the bush wasn't too great so I had to prune them all away and wait for the next batch to grow.

My lavenders are doing very well! Ah all those plans I had, to make my own lavender oil and underpillow sachets!

A little about my flight home...

I have to say I was very surprised at how spartan the airport at Riyadh was! I promised a friend that I would buy him 2 cartons of ciggarettes only to find that there were only 2 shops at the Riyadh airport, one selling jewellery and the other selling "sundries" (namely perfume and small luggage bags). I suppose Saudi being a mostly tax free country, there is no need for tax-free shopping at the airport!

This was my first time flying with Saudi Airlines. I would have to say that it was a bit of a let down! The seats were rather small and uncomfortable and I have to be sexist and say that there is a difference when you are served by men instead of women! Yes this being Saudi Air, the air stewards were mainly guys. I think there were 2 ladies and they were stationed in the first class. And there was no 180o reclining chairs in the first class! I tell ya I think the business class on BA is better than the first class on Saudi! The plane was much older too. The food was passable. We had the choice of Beef straganoff, chicken bryani and grilled hammour with white rice. I asked for the hammour but I think the rice was too dry on top, perhaps left too long in the microwave.

And the in flight entertainment system. Boy I just realised how lucky I am that I get satelitte TV! The movies on the plane were censored! OK to be fair I come from Singapore and I live in KL and I am no stranger to movies being censored, but normally they would censor perhaps sex scenes or provocative scenes. But on the Saudi flight, there is censorship on women's clevage, bare arms, feet, alcohol drinks held my actors, Christian religious symbolism etc etc etc. What they basically did was to have those parts blurred out! I was aghast! In one scene in Laws of attraction, Julian Moore, who was wearing a sleeveless top had her arms blurred out. In Paycheck, Uma Thurman was wearing a singlet top, so all one can see on the screen was her face!

I'd have to say, no wonder they can't have movie theatres in Saudi! Imagine the number of censors they would have to hire to blurr out almost everything!