[West Ender]

A bit like your experience, really, I flew out to Dahran in Saudi Arabia. My husband, who was already there, met me at the airport and we had to drive through the desert to Riyadh. I'd heard all the stories about the arid desert but the minute I arrived it started raining and the roads were flooded. It rained and was cold for the first 3 days I was there. After that, of course, the sun and the heat returned. I thought the desert would be all white sand and big dunes as in all the glamorous movies. It was flat, scrubby and the sand was a dirty, dusty orange colour.