Its been a week of contrasts with meals for me. In the rarified atmosphere up on the 2000meter high plateau of Jebel Akhdar I took a walk through the flowering Peach, Apricot and Almond gardens where fragile flowers bloom in a rugged landscape. We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch of rice and chicken - the chicken, flavoured with spices seemed to be the most tasty chicken I had eaten in a long time .

Several hundred kilometers away near Masirah Island & 2000meters lower down from my mountain lunch I shared a nighttime meal of rice and locally caught fish a few meters from the Arabian Sea . We joined local fisherfolk for dinner by the light of an old lantern with the sound of the surf in a very atmospheric meal http://blog.omanholiday.co.uk/blog/Photos/_archives/2008/3/3/3557091.html .

The section of coast we enjoyed has a scattering of small fishing villages who use the beach or boat to travel from one to the other .

During the winter the beaches are full of gulls snacking off discarded fish from the fishermen’s nets and other sea bird passing including chains of undulating cormorants as they fly from their roost to feeding grounds farther along the coast.

By way of contrast back in Muscat I was delighted to have a couple of meals with Timothy Burrill just before his film ‘La vie en Rose’ won a couple of Oscars. With classic Italian food, a delightful restaurant and sparkling conversation from Timothy and Petra it rounded off a week of special meals.