One of the reasons I am thankful for my time in Saudi Arabia – I first went in 2013, when it was closed to most foreigners – is that it gave me the chance to be invited to social events which as an English instructor I would never otherwise have had access to. Here is another little vignette.

We were standing in the beautifully-furnished reception room of the Herzlovakian ambassador’s private residence in the Diplomatic Quarter, Riyadh.

I had just arrived and been introduced to the ambassador himself, and his matronly clumpy-heeled wife, who looked like she’s be more at home boiling up dumplings in a dacha somewhere than being polite to total strangers in a fairytale-beautiful reception room in the middle of the desert.

His Excellency Cszimiercz Dragomirov took my hand to kiss it, and in a way I have noticed in very polite elderly men in Central Europe, his lips stopped just a few millimetres above the skin. Nothing of any relevance was said, of course, but I enjoyed it.

Outside in the gorgeous warm air , refined guests were exchanging the usual platitudes ( though not always and not only ) around the floodlit swimming pool, and liveried staff pattered here and there serving canapés and the most exquisite of wines.

A figure in a trouser suit reminiscent of a James Bond character of the 70s , with hairstyle to match, caught my eye, so I moved over to join her circle and listen in, to work out her nationality, learn a little before deciding on my next step. I was welcomed by an intense, clever-looking young woman, whose accent was alien to me:
‘ ….Armenian. I’m a violinist. Have to keep it quiet here in Saudi, of course, not allowed to perform in public places – music is barred you know – but here’s my card. ‘

Trouser Suit picked a smoked salmon delicacy from a proffered silver salver and thanked the Indian waiter.

‘Ah, a violinist ? Have you met Flavia D’Ascannio ? She plays the harp. Her husband’s the Italian ambassador, you know; utterly charming.’ She turned to me.’ I don’t think we’ve met…I’m Madeleine Lumière.’

I introduced myself, said also that I’m Scottish.

‘ Ma chère écossaise. We have Maria Stuart, Queen of  Scots in common ! That dreadful English Elizabeth was no match for us !’

Astonishingly, she winked at me, and her eyes sparkled with mirth. ‘Now come with me and I’ll introduce you to Justine Lajoie, she writes, you know. You do speak French, don’t you ? ‘

” No such thing as a black sheep,” he explained, as I pointed at one in the flock.

” Sheep are all the same. The black ones aren’t any different from the others, they’re just black”.

This was Zufar Suleman, a North Macedonian shepherd I met last week on a mountain plain not far from where I live.

As we talked, one or two of his sheep trotted mindlessly onto the road, hooves clacking on the asphalt, and Zufar thwacked his stick on the ground to get them back onto the grass.

” I never hit my sheep. You can see they’re not afraid of me. They wouldn’t stand so close if they were. ”

* * *

I like a new person to chat to, and Mr Zufar Suleman did too.

“They never get the spelling right in the post office. Suleman means ‘peace’, you know, not that we had much peace in Macedonia. Tito’s first wife was Serbian, of course, that’s where all the trouble all started.”

” But my parents were from Albania. We had Hoxha there, remember ? “( I did remember Hoxha, from my fleeting engagment with stamp collecting in childhood, and I remembered another dictator of Albanian origin, one of my bosses in Saudi Arabia ).

“The Italians were in Albania, twice, before the communists. When I first emigrated here to Italy, they tried to deport us back to Albania, offered us a bit of cash but I like it here and I like my work. I’m healthy and I’m outdoors. Never taken a pill in all my days, but I got the covid vaccination. My son Najden – he lives in Hamburg, wife’s from North Macedonia – forced me to”.

“I have a new boss now, a woman. I used to take sheep to other places but this summer I’m here. I don’t like it too much because there’s no shade, and the tourist camper vans upset the sheepdogs at weekends so I have to keep moving. I usually live in Foggia with my wife and we’ve got two daughters there. It’s 200 kilometres away, and that’s where the sheep spend most of the year.”

I was about to ask him if he walked all that way here with the sheep every summer, like they used to do, but he pre-empted my question, and gave me a this woman has no idea about anything look, though it was a gentle one.

“They get driven up here in lorries and I follow them in my van. That’s where I sleep when I’m looking after the sheep. I’ve been in Italy for 35 years now, pension coming up soon. But I’ll keep working. I’d miss the sheep…and maybe they’d miss me too.”

I was excited and gratified to have had Mohammed over here in the Abruzzo region of Italy the other week. It’s long been a goal of mine to see a Saudi woman ( not one of the contemporary young ones, but one wearing a black abaya and with her face covered ) walk along the streets of L’Aquila because the visual and cultural juxtaposition of conservative provincial Italy with conservative provincial Saudi Arabia is a ludicrous kind of an idea – exactly why I liked it.

Mohammed is not a woman and nor was he wearing traditional garb, but he does come from Saudi Arabia and he did walk along the streets of L’Aquila.

He’s an archeologist and also I discovered he is a bedouin, from the Empty Quarter, down there on the Yemeni border, and I’m very happy that he came here and connected our two worlds.

Well I’ve got to the stage now of being truly numbed into vapidity by the utter greenness of everything around here, the endless nature all over the place, the hills, the space, the slowness, the stability, the church bells, the repetition, the sheer unchangingness of the whole flaming lot.

When a man is tired of London etc ; go online.

I’ve been making some investigations over the last few days into the Zeigarnik Effect ( the interested reader will know it, or find out about it online) astrology and intuitives, then the usual things about us all being at the end of a huge energic cycle, ‘radical regeneration’ and suchlike. Also I looked into relatively recent research into telepathy ( and its connection with autism, some believe ), which an Indian friend told me about in Delhi a few months ago.

And I have a cheery, life-loving current airbnb guest so there’s been some good chat there too. In the flesh and face-to-face.

Made my bed, brushed my teeth, watered the plants, emptied the dishwasher, did my steps, caught up on Whatsapp messages, counted my blessings/’acknowleged gratitude’, did some cooking, admired the view, heard the birds, skim-read the headlines, and exchanged idle pleasantries with a neighbour. Wrote this little rant too.

And it’s still only 10.30 am.

According to some statistic or another that I picked up on a podcast this morning, I have about 7,000 days left at most.

So since my week ahead involves seeing an old friend or two, getting an eye test for my new driving license, a boiler inspection, walking mindlesslessly backwards and forwards in the local swimming pool, hanging out the washing, ‘doing my steps’, and watering my lettuces, I’m again thinking about how to spend this precious remaining time. Broken into small chunks, though, in the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men vein, and trying to always remember that these days might stop at any minute.

The list of hackneyed responses comes quickly : ‘Life is what you make it’, ‘ Get some hobbies’, ‘ Help out in the local community’ , ‘Join some groups’ , ‘ Do some volunteer work’, and the worst of all, ‘Keep busy.’

Yes yes of course, but.