The 'Spill

Here we are at the Fugits. This is the main sound system and a large portion of our cds. We ahve more in the bedroom and I've got a couple of record collections on separate hard drives. A couple of mates and I decided to share our stuff and put our complete cd collections on hard drives. Took ages and I still haven't had time to hear everything. It's something I'm saving for my old age, when I don't work and won't be able to afford to buy as much as I do now. I neve ruse the hard drive stuff for RR selections, only my own stuff. I've also got about 200 cassettes packed away in boxes - I was told I could have either cds or cassettes 'cluttering' up the front room.

We live in a typical arabic style first floor apartment. It's built to house an extended family of 6 - 8 or so and is inhabited by us two Fugits. This is the front room. It is meant to be used as a 'diwan'. This is the public part of the home, used for entertaining guests - usually men only, the women will go into the family rooms. We use it as the front room. This is the music corner. There is a huge balcony to the left, where we sit and enjoy the spring and autumn evenings, sweeping open the large French window. The space in front of the music centre is the dance floor - yes after a few bevvies, we still get up and strut our stuff - usually after 1 in the morning. Then we have the telly section in the opposite corner. Our downstairs neighbour is the second wife of a young Emirati from Dubai. It is empty apart from a few hours a couple of evenings a month when they endeavour to obtain pregnancy. When he returns to the first wife, the second wife goes home to her family home. This means the volume can be turned up and I can close my eyes and imagine I might be at a concert.

It may look a bit sparse, but it's how we like our space - empty to be filled by sound.