Danger! Danger!

The new in thing here in the Muscat Mansion is the Thursday morning swim. All the cool kids in Muscat, apparently, are going in on the biathlon/triathlon scene and, well, I just hate to get left behind, so I have signed up for a biathlon. However, before one can actually attempt such a rigorous event, one must train, so train I will.

In actuality, training began last month with a 2 kilometer sea swim outside a much-too-Western compoundy area called "The Wave". You drive into The Wave and enter a state of cultural confusion, beginning with the enormous billboard of Greg Norman, which greets you at the front gates, and not ending until one has completed a circuit of the cobble stoned streets lined with grass, trees, immaculate homes, and Western shops.

Fortunately I am not required to drive through The Wave to get to the training venue. Instead, we meet at a car park just next to The Wave, where a clutch of Indians play cricket every Thursday next to an enormous family of Omanis who visit the beach without fail at the start of each weekend. Although our group of "trainees" meet, zombie-like, at 7 a.m., this family looks perky and bushy-tailed at 7, as if they have been frolicking on the beach since 5:30 a.m. and are ready to get on with lunch by the time we show up.

The water at the beach is clear, and calm enough to observe our toes as we wade in to our waists; the salinity of the Arabian Sea wants to pick me up and float me. The visibility is convenient for doing a critter check. The first time we did this swim, a black and yellow sea snake slithered past along the sandy bottom (DANGER--but only if they bite, which it didn't). Another time a ray glided past (DANGER--but only if you step on them, which I didn't do). Last week a school of fish flew out of the water (DANGER possibly, but only if you hear music). Today I see a starfish. Hardly the dangerous creature to which I have grown accustomed.

We swim a kilometer down the beach and then turn around to come back to our starting point and I find (DANGER) that my swimming partner, Greta, has disappeared. Finally I spy her sitting way down the beach, near Tian, who has been babysitting Greta's two year old. Bizarre. Greta is hard core when it comes to swimming. As a matter of fact, after her stroke revelation last week she has become a torpedo in the water, burying the rest of us inferiors with wake that issues behind her like a speed boat. However, she is not bionic and there is no way she could have already finished the swim.

"Sorry," she says matter of factly when I reach her. "The police came and got me out of the water."

Apparently two Egyptian beach goers had had a bit of a fright when they saw Tian and Hux playing on the beach. They had misinterpreted Tian as an abandoned four year old who had been left in charge of her younger sibling. (DANGER) They then made a further jump and presumed that Greta and I had either A.) drowned or B.) gone on a luxury cruise, leaving the two alone for good. Then they called the Royal Omani Police, reported that these two ruffians, aged 4 and 2, had been playing on the beach, alone, for several hours, and needed to be taken somewhere in the company of responsible adults, possibly to an orphanage.

When the police came, they were very apologetic at dragging Greta out of the water and left just after the Egyptians, who, realizing their error, exited the beach scene rather quickly.

So now you see why it has been nearly six weeks since I have last blogged. I have been so busy training for the biathlon (no, really, I have...kind of...okay, not really too much but sometimes!), endangering my four-year-old child (okay, really she is ten, nearly eleven, but four year old sounds more dramatic), and recreating myself as an irresponsible beach bum that I have not had time for blogs!

But I promise to try harder from now on, rather than living on the dangerous side of life, to toe the line and get some serious writing done. Seriously.