Bouncing Back

“You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.”

Kurt Vonnegut

I started to feel better Monday.

On Tuesday I was back in the gym.

I have defeated AIDS. I am invincible.

Thursday

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Another work week down and the only drama is nine year old children on social media.

Is there a bigger cesspit of dishonesty and duplicity than Snapchat?

If there was a purpose-built platform made specifically for misrepresentation, liars and pedophiles, it is Snapchat.

Its sidekick TikTok may not be as sinister, but it sucks the life from the thinking brain faster than any drug.

Fortunately, it all happened outside of school.

Nine year olds, unsupervised, on Snapchat, making bad choices with poorly formed decision making brains while their parents were elsewhere, probably on Snapchat.

Of course, when the torch is placed on the perpetrators, the parents cry that it is not little Mohamed, he doesn’t know how to use photoshop.

He does, he teaches me how to use it.

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

Aldous Huxley

Friday

“The sea is either calm or stormy. If one wants a calm sea one cannot get it by suppressing the stormy sea. One must wait for this same sea to become calm.”

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Up early and we head to Ras Al-Khaimah for a paddle.

There is very little swell, but some small choppy runners which are fun to work through heading up wind.

Shell sits on the side of the boat looking into the sunrise. She is wearing her blue cap. It was eleven years and one day she did that same thing and I realised we would be together. I had loved her for months, but at that moment, the sun on her face in the rolling swell, I knew we would be together.

“Our lips were for each other and our eyes were full of dreams. We knew nothing of travel and we knew nothing of loss. Ours was a world of eternal spring, until the summer came.”

Roman Payne

It is getting hotter, there are no turds around and we jump in for a swim.

Does cholera and typhoid exist 7km off shore?

Head home feeling better for the paddle.

I continue reading Cities of the Plain. When I need a break I read Robert Sapolsky, Determined.

It is heavy reading, over 600 pages, and weighty with science. Sometimes I have to read the same thing twice to get my head around it. It is the natural follow up to his book Behave, which is excellent.

We head into Deira. Our friends Wenche and Graeme have shouted us a cheese and wine pairing at Grape Skin. It is a beautiful night and we sit outside. There is shisha and cigars on the menu. I am tempted, but I still have a lingering cough from my battle with chest AIDS the week before.

Shell looks stunning, the cheeses are excellent and the wines well matched.

Thank you, Wenche and Graeme.

Valdivieso dry cured manchego, Castile-La Mancha Spain (raw milk) with NV Bodega Torres Vardon Kennet Cuvée Esplendor (Penedès, Spain)

Wensleydale smoked cheddar, Yorkshire UK (raw milk) with 2020 AA Badenhorst Secateurs Kalmoesfontein Red Blend (Swartland, south Africa)

Couffy soft goat cheese, Loire Valley France (raw milk) with 2017 Principi de Butera Seró Insolia (Sicily, Italy)

Fromagerie Pappilon Pèrail, Pyrenees France (raw milk) with 2022 Bodegas Navajas Rioja Rosado (Rioja, Spain)

Colston Bassett Stilton, Derbyshire UK with NV Grahams Fine White Port (Porto, Portugal)

“Every raw-milk cheese is an artifact of the land; it carries the imprint of the earth from which it came. A cheese—even a fresh chèvre—is never just a thing to put in your mouth. It’s a living piece of geography. A sense of place.”

Brad Kessler

Saturday

Hit the gym and head to Ajman to stock up on wine.

Last night was the first wine we have had since getting back from Europe. I don’t miss it, but I do not want to be short should the need arise.

I spend the afternoon reading Determined and neglecting Cities of the Plain. I might never finish it at this rate.

We watch American Beauty, still a classic, and start watching the Fallout series.

“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.”

Alan Ball

Sunday

Sleep in.

Don’t do much.

Get lunches ready for next week.

Motivation for work is low.

The fools were called wise, and the wise were stoned. Men who worked did not get enough to eat, and the men who did not work ate too much.”

Jack London