Arabian Bling

G'day

Well, the title may be a little bit of hyperbole ... what I mean is that we are collecting a lot of "stuff" while we are here. Maybe it's not bling, but that's a nice word and I like onomatopia, so even though it isn't strictly bling, I'm gunna call it bling. Ok?

So what's this bling we're collecting? Well, during our latest trip to Jordan I acquired an Arabian art piece, which is shown here at the left. It's mounted on a wooden frame in the same way that Central Australian dot paintings are displayed. There were dozens to choose from and I chose this as a memento of my trip to Jordan.

Last time in Jordan we acquired a small pottery vessel with an interesting hatched glaze and a painted oryx ... at least I think it's an oryx as it has straight horns. Then there's the three Arabian style coffee pots, and the wall hung carpets, and the dancing dervishes that our friends Sharon and Serge gave us ... and the Canadian thermometer that goes to 50 degrees Celsius unlike the one made in Germany that bombs out at 40 degrees Celsius (fat lot of good in Central Australia!).

Bling is a bit like jewellery. You can rotate it. You don't have to wear the $4,000 TAG Heuer wrist watch every day, you can rotate it with the shitty Rolex Oyster from Thailand that you got for $15. Nobody knows the difference. You can still tell the time as well as ever and pretend you are a filthy rich bastard to boot.

We can rotate some of this stuff through our house to impress you when you visit. Hopefully you'll forget last year's bling and think we are blinged to the hilt.

At the end of the day, if we are down on the bones of our bums and our kids won't help us, we can have a Bling Fest ... not as much fun as some other fests that come to mind (get your mind out of the bedroom), like an October Fest, but helpful if you need that kilo of rice to keep you going until pension day.

Aaaah, it's truly a great life. We should all endeavour to gather as much bling as possible in our younger years so that when we are in need of a bite to eat or a carton of Fourex, we can flog off a bit of bling. And remember, if you bling up early in life, by the time you need your Fourex, the bling could qualify as an antique. Much greater value.

Now that we are close to packing our stuff to move back home, every bit of bling seems larger than life.

Here's to all that bling.

Robin