Driving Me Crazy

Anyone who battles Kuwait traffic in the morning knows just how infuriating it can be.

It starts off at the top of my road where suddenly over the past fortnight, the traffic has been bumper to bumper at the same time every day- five minutes can make all the difference. What really annoys me is that some people ( in the UK we call them road hogs) seem to feel that it is perfectly alright to start up a new lane in the direction of oncoming traffic just in order to get to the top of the queue. I make sure when I’m at the top of the queue, I don’t let them in.

Then when you hit the main road, you meet several types of driver.

The 140 kph+ flasher, I can deal with- I just don’t move for him and if he wants to swerve into the middle lane to overtake me, that’s fine by me.
Then there’s the weaver. I do hate Willie Weaver; he/she weaves in and out of the traffic causing cars behind to suddenly brake and cause mass panic for miles behind, or suddenly weaves around you into the emergency lane scooting gravel up in their wake. How many cracks have you got on your windscreen? I’ve got five.

But there’s one driver who really pisses me off……

The ‘I’m going to drive at a steady 75 kph no matter where I am’ maniac.

‘No matter where I am’ could translate into the fast lane at rush hour, the middle lane at rush hour or the slow lane, rarely. They usually opt for the middle lane and presumed safety. Not wishing to sound racist/sexist but these sinners are invariably middle aged women, Indian drivers or Egyptian workers in ‘Wanettes’ ….. The middle aged woman is stuck two inches from her windscreen and looks neither left nor right…..The Indian drivers, in their flash new Chevy Captivas or Fortuners,employed solely to chauffeur the kids to and fro, have obviously been told by the sir of the house ‘stay in the middle and don’t go above 75′…..and this they will do til their dying day, no matter how many hundreds of irate rush hour commuters are piling up behind them. The Egyptian workers, poured in 8 to a seat with work materials too, are singing, eating their breakfast felafel and quite oblivious to any driver in front, next to or behind them, as they make their way to their next painting job.

Don’t think it’s over. You have survived part one of the morning driving experience but it gets even better when you get to the school drop off point. Apparently most , usually polite parents, leave all their manners at home when it comes to preparation for the school drop off. It’s kill or be killed I’m afraid, take no prisoners, let no one in in front of you, do NOT give way, under no circumstances must you give way and most importantly, use your horn whenever possible, to insist the car in front drives THROUGH the car in front in order for you to drop your sprog off right in front of the school gate. In FRONT, in FRONT…..the mantra for the morning…

This experience is only surpassed by the school pick up at the end of the morning. You’ve made it through the morning drop off and are almost out of the woods, but don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet, because if you are really lucky, a fat and grumpy father in a beat up Chevvy will scratch the side of your car as he comes up the ‘restricted one way between 12-2′ the wrong way, simply because it’s Kuwait and he can…..yes welcome to my yesterday world.

Mar 25

Chicken

It’s been a ‘fowl’ kind of day.

First, after breakfast I told my eldest daughter to take the tray downstairs and put it in the chicken- well of course I meant KITCHEN…. 6 am is way to early for any normal human being to function, never mind actually co-ordinate speech.

I dropped the terrors all off to school and nearly ran over some wild bantum hens that live in the house next to the school; they like to wander aimlessly up and down the street and across the road whenever they like. I swerved to avoid them and nearly hit an oncoming Misubishi driven by an Egyptian mother with an agenda and flicked my wing mirrors in just in case,

When I got home, all plans for chicken biryani had to be put on hold as I had forgotten to leave it out of the freezer the night before and we had to settle on spaghetti bolognese instead.

It was a peaceful morning, spent doing a bit of washing, fixing up the house, watching TV and working out in the new gym area downstairs, before heading off to pick up the kids. I took a different road to avoid the roaming hens…..

So, my son ran out of the school gates with a look of pure delight on his face. Ah, he had a good school trip, I thought.

Yes and no- he had been to a local amusement park, but not to my amusement had come back with a baby chicken in a bag….alive and tweeting.

Not happy. Sensible teachers, I thought, sensible……

Then came the sandstorm.

Well midnight and the chicken ( who we have named Orville due to its fluff) is still ( much to my chagrin ) alive and tweeting in one of the upstairs bathrooms. He will only stop tweeting if I hold and rock him.

Reminds me of a picture I saw of chef Gordon Ramsey and the caption: