Showing posts with label Al Jahli Fort. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Jahli Fort. Show all posts

Saturday, 24 April 2010

Lazy me



I'm procrastinating. I'm good at that, I could even call myself an expert. I've got work to do, grocery shopping to do, phone calls to make, emails to write. The issue is I just don't feel like doing any of it. So here I am uploading my photos and playing with them after spending time reading a very good book. I'm feeling uncharacteristically lazy.

That could be because it's 40c+ outside, could be that I've had an excellent weekend and I've got that Sunday afternoon feeling. Well, here it's a Saturday afternoon feeling. Womad in Abu Dhabi was more upbeat than in Al Ain. The beach and corniche were packed with people. The two stages meant that people circulated. It was hot and very sticky, fun to share with friends.

We sat on the sand and enjoyed the Persian drummers as well as Abri and others. The photo is of Abri performing in Al Ain. The skill of the drummers was amazing, I'll have a look on YouTube to see if I can add a clip here soon. For now enjoy these photos, two of the few that worked from Thursday night.

Monday, 6 July 2009

Al Jahli Fort





Al Jahli Fort is about 5 minutes walk from my place and yet I hadn't visited it until last weekend.
There's no excuse really, people had told me it was a must see. Anne told me about the Wilfred Thesiger exhibition, that it was a treat. How right she was. It brought tears to my eyes when I saw how wonderful his photographs were, photographs capturing the beauty of this place a generation or so ago. The beauty of the desert and most importantly of the people.
Sue, Kathryn and I were enthralled, we stayed quite a while revisiting our favorites, soaking in the stillness and silence. Some of his quotes were included. This one touched me:
"It was very still, with the silence we have driven from our world"
Wilfred Thesiger