That behaviour stands in sharp contrast to my own life since I became a smartphone owner nearly twenty years ago. Desert-dwellers do not hear a beep, read a message, follow a link and fall into a rabbit hole, only to wake up on YouTube hours later—unable to recall why.

I do, but I try to improve.

I am no longer one of those people who put off things until the last minute. These days, without pause, delay or hesitation, I instead procrastinate.

Now, THAT is what I call progress.

It ended on Thursday—which was good. But then it started on Sunday—which was less so.

Until then, I cannot in good conscience say that I knew what a Sunday morning looked like, nor indeed if such a thing as a Sunday morning even existed. If I had ever experienced one, it must have been that I hadn’t gotten to bed yet.

So, Friday became the new Sunday. But that turned out to be impossible to explain to colleagues and clients back in Norway; for them, Friday was the day for meetings. Particularly in the latter part of the day.

Time-wise, Europe is two or three hours behind the Emirates, depending on the accursed impact of daylight saving time. Around midday, my phone would start behaving in a most un-Sunday-like manner; something that would persist until about seven in the evening.

But Arabia had more tricks up its sleeve to mess up my work week. After a few years, I became involved in a project in the neighbouring country of Oman. Here the working week at that time started on Saturday and ran through Wednesday.

And, just like that, weekend as I knew it was abolished. I’d work in the Emirates from Sunday to Thursday, have meetings with Europe on Fridays and then fly to Oman to work Saturdays.

But there was still Thursday nights. Due to the time difference, I could sleep in for a couple of hours on Friday mornings.

And how better to spend Thursday night than to gather up some camping gear, go to the desert, light a bonfire and watch the sunset. A new scene every time in an ever-shifting landscape of sand.

One.

That ‘one’, is Jebel Hafeet—the ’empty’ mountain—located on the border between Oman and the United Arab Emirates near Al Ain.

Jebel Hafeet, with its 1 249 m.a.s.l, towers majestically above the surrounding desert plain. It is unmistakably, undeniably and unanimously ‘a mountain’.

In former days, an important hunting ground, the mountain has long had a vital role in the Emiratis’ hearts and minds. Today, Jebel Hafeet is more well-known for its recreational rather than its nutritional significance.

And in this respect, Jebel Hafeet has issues; at least seen through Norwegian eyes.

In Norway, the word ‘recreation’ has nothing to do with rest and restoration. Instead, it means an exorbitant outlay of physical effort with no other objective than reaching a viewpoint.

This is so ingrained in our culture that we even have a ‘mountain code’ consisting of nine rules that states what would be blatantly obvious to anyone but Norwegians.

The first seven rules focus on how to prepare for mountain walks.

The eight’ rule states you shouldn’t be ‘… ashamed to turn around’, which you inherently ought to, having just failed to observe the first seven.

The ninth’ and last rule advise you to ‘… conserve your energy and seek shelter’. That rule is widely regarded as encouragement to find a place to hide your shame while concocting means by which to blame your failure on a third party.

Unwritten, and absolutely essential to Norwegians, is that a mountain must only be accessible at the cost of hard physical labour with no short-cuts or ‘illegal’ aids.

It is in this last capacity that Jebel Hafeet fails to meet the requirements.

There is a two-lane road, built to highway standards, leading all the way to the top. The upper slopes have a palace and a tourist hotel—and the summit is a vast parking lot with a snack bar.

Still, smoking sheesha here at night, looking out over the lights of the oasis town of Al Ain is a decidedly good thing in life.

The worst type of winter is the one that offers near-perpetual downpour, grey skies, short days and around-zero temperatures. That, incidentally, is the type of winter we have in Belgium – and indeed in most of the northern part of continental Europe.

Now, spring is never quite as far away here as it is back home in Norway. Still, the next two months will offer plenty of time and opportunity to reflect on the Belgian winter relative to that of other places; places that this winter will remain out of bounds.

I lived in Arabia for some years. There, I learned of another winter; a winter of pleasant temperatures, clear skies, perpetual sun, deserted beaches and indoor ski slopes.

So, as I ushered out 2020 by paying tribute to the nature of Belgium, I will work myself through the Belgian winter by reminiscing over warmer, sunnier days on the Arabian peninsula.

Initially, it had been my intention to spend only four weeks working in the United Arab Emirates. But, as time passed, one project turned into another and another until at the end of four years I was still there.

It was the nature that fascinated me the most about the Emirates. And, when talking about nature in Arabia, the mind quickly turns to the desert.

Desert is not the only type of nature in the Emirates, as I shall proceed to demonstrate over the next days and weeks—but admittedly the most prominent.

For that reason, I will start in the desert, with a sunrise view from the top of one of the vast sand dunes that mark the start of the Rub’ al Khali—the Empty Quarter—of the great Arabian Desert.

The sand dunes here are two-three hundred meters tall, creating an ever-shifting mountain landscape of red, orange, yellow, brown and grey sand that is set on fire by the sunrise and the sunset.

So, right now, while the rain is drizzling down on the Belgian winter dawn, join me here, albeit, for the moment, figuratively rather than literally.

Not even as a failure had my misadventure been complete.

My walk had yielded several photos of the mountain I had wanted to climb with which I was pleased. And, the sunset had been—as is the custom of sunsets—faultless.

But… to every silver lining, there is a cloud, and that cloud was now on my mind. My car was in urgent need of liberation from the clutches of the desert.

I took to pondering over solutions to my predicament. I first went over all secular options I could think of. But having exhausted these, for the briefest of time, my mind turned to religion.

Contrary to the fundamental doctrine of my upbringing, and for the first time in my life, I found myself coveting my neighbour’s ox.

I did not wish to lure his wife from him nor to dispossess him of his house, donkey or any anything else he might hold title to. And, I did not envy him his servants, whether male, female or gender-fluid. But his ox now, that might have been useful.

Some might at this stage point out that I had arrived at holy scripture and livestock solutions rather too quickly, bypassing more conventional means of car-rescue. To understand my train of thought, it is useful to know a little about my many and varied failings as a human being.

I find those solutions best that allow my role in the making of the underlying problem to remain obscure. Such solutions can by careful choice of words, be moulded into triumphs of human ingenuity, rather than conclusive evidence of an unsound mind.

On reflection, however, there seemed to be no way out of this proverbial and literal hole that excluded seeking help from others. My self-preservation instincts pulled rank on my pride.

I sought in vain for mitigating factors in which I could embalm the lacerated remains of my dignity. But, as hard as I thought, I could think of nothing to justify my folly.

Back on the main road, I stopped an ageing pickup containing eight(!) non-judgemental locals who were well-accustomed to the feeble-minded eccentricities of tourists.

By their inherent goodwill, brought forward by twenty Jordanian Dinars, my car was restored to the paved surface to which it belonged, and I with it.

And then the starts came out.

Bilete teke ein sein kveldstime fredag 3. August 2007 på Håholmen ved Averøya.