Day 5/6

Note - The previous entries were written while I was still in Bahrian but I'm writing the rest of the holiday blog from my desk back in Edinburgh (out of office hours of course!).

Day 5 was another day spent nursing the cold. By this point I had ripped through 4 of the chick lit books I brought over for Nat. These were The Adultery Club by Tess Stimson, Why Not? by Shari Low, Around the World in 80 Dates by Jennifer Cox and Lipstick Jungle by Candice Bushnell. Sheesh! That's a lot of chick lit!

That evening we attended the Marlboro Speed of Sound party at the Gulf hotel. My first swanky party in Bahrain. Woo hoo! Unfortunately we didn't have VIP tickets so there were no seats or free soft drinks for us (this is apparently what a VIP ticket gets you). I was wearing the new killer heels so a seat would have been most welcome. Never mind though, I was happy to soak up the atmosphere... Until my feet got sore! Thankfully we didn't stay too long as Nat's cousins had a curfew. Just before leaving some boy that looked about 15 came over and asked me to dance. It's only looking back on it now I realise he was probably some nephew of the king or something to have that big of a brass neck. Perhaps I should have been a bit more gracious but my first thought was "What? You're very short. Does your mum know you're out??" Ho hum.

Day 6 was Sunday and that meant... No, not another day of rest. Sunday was Grand Prix day! After 3 days of rest and recuperation... And coughing and sneezing and generally grossing out Nat and Barbara... I was ready to leave the house and see what all the fuss is about. We piled into the car and headed off to the race track, stopping on the way to pick up a bunch of Nat's family who had come to Bahrain especially. The sun was shining so the factor 30 was on again and it was hot, hot, hot! No more dust, the rain of the last few days had cleared it away. I'm sure the racing car made from grass (can you smoke it?) looked even more fabulous on Friday but by this point it was looking decidedly frazzled! The sand sculpture (photo of which is trapped on the digital camera) looked amazing as well, until you got close to it and the wind blew sand in your face.

There was a Red Arrows type flying display by 4 planes going on when we arrived. They went up-tiddely-up-up and down-tiddely-um-down and loop the looped and flew all around and we all went 'Oooh!' and 'Aaaah!'. Then came the thing that really impressed me - formation flying with 2 jumbo jets. Now that was something to behold! Apparently it wasn't very well publicised the first year they did it so everyone thought a terrorist attack was happening and they dove for cover in the stands.

We had a wander around, looked at the vastly expensive merchandise and acquired some earplugs. I was told that these were essentials for the Grand Prix but I didn't quite grasp how essential they were until the race actually started. Oh my gosh! Those cars are LOUD! We had good seats high up in the Victory Stand so there was a lovely cool breeze blowing on us. In keeping with the theme of the rest of the week I was a very comfortable temperature and all the ex-pats were complaining about the cold. Once the race started it was quite difficult to tell what was going on, apart from a whole bunch of cars going 'Vroooooom' around and around the track. Did I mention they were loud? Gosh, they were loud. A few of the chaps sitting near to us didn't seem to have earplugs and I did see them trying to stuff their shirts into their ears. Oh dear!

So, the race wasn't as exciting as expected but I would put that mostly down to not having a bally clue what was going on or who was who. One of the cars (and orange and black one?) seemed to take a pit stop or something early on so for many of the early laps it was lagging behind everyone else and it was temting to shout "Boo! You're rubbish!" at whoever was driving. I didn't though. Then about halfway through somebody almost went on fire in front of us (David Coulthard maybe?). When they came round the corner we could see flames around the wheel and exhaust area, but then they were around the corner again and out of sight. I was waiting for the big explosion and the obligatory flaming wheel to come rolling back round the corner but it didn't happen so I guess he must have got to a fire extinguisher in time. Towards the end of the race (around lap sixteen million and three) I did find myself wishing that it was more like Whacky Races. Now that would have been entertaining! However, the look on Craig's face when I got back and showed him the photos of the cars made it all worth it. Engage smug mode.