“Was it all a Dream" - A writing residency in AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Mike Ludgrove has spent many years building wooden sailboats and sailing the seven seas. In his later life, writing became a more deliberate and sustaining discipline, particularly following a life-threatening ocean crossing from Cape Town to French Guiana in 2016. Since then his work has been broadcast and presented in several public and cultural spaces, including Exeter UNESCO City of Literature’s Gaia Creates and Illustrating The Wor(l)d projects.
Writing remains the central and most enduring passion in Mike’s life. A fictionalised version of the voyage Mike undertook in 2016 is almost complete, and it was with this piece of writing that Writing Retreats Saudi Arabia invited him to attend their AlUla retreat in the Spring of 2026.
It came clean out of the blue. No exaggeration! I was on home ground in the mild and pleasant city of Exeter, occasionally sallying forth with a poem, or a prose piece, quite content to make the grade on more than one occasion in the annals of Exeter City of Literature’s frequent written word competitions. Fun, and very rewarding in so many ways. But that wasn’t to be the end of it – not just a brief echo in a small city somewhere on a windswept, lizard-like peninsular surrounded by the great Atlantic Ocean.
I didn’t have to make that choice either, as Frost gave expression to in ‘The Road not Taken.’ In this case the road jumped out of the yellow wood and chose me. Even now, I find myself in a state of disbelief as to how I came to be invited to visit the beautiful mountain region of AlUla in Saudi Arabia.
I had done some work, my novel being almost complete. But only a few snippets had been released via Exeter City of Literature, yet somehow these managed to reach a wider audience. In this case The Writing Retreats committee based in Riyadh, from whom the first overture came in January. It simply stated that a Writing Retreat was being held at the ancient Unesco site of AlUla and would I be interested in attending. All expenses paid.
Since youth I had been inspired by the adventuring spirit of explorers, Wilfred Thesiger being one of these. In 1947 his fearless determination to enter the extreme wilderness of the Saudi Arabian Empty Quarter, riding a camel, caused local Bedouin to think him mad. My journey would not, I hoped, be marked by the kind of hardship he experienced, and which landed him in prison through lack of formal invitation.
In fact my stay, lasting three weeks, was characterised by great comfort, exquisite food and the warmest, friendliest people I could ever hope to enjoy the good fortune of being among. My spacious room looked directly onto a landscape of towering sandstone mountains, hewn by desert winds into a fantasia of animal-like figures and around which birds flew, occasionally eagles, spectacular species, if unfamiliar. During the evening, lighting arrangements cast these forms even more dramatically, contrasting with striking shadows.
I rose early to watch the sun brush the sandstone summits with hues of golden honeycomb, as I sipped the first mint tea of the day. A short walk, shaded by date palms, past the open sky cinema and pool gardens and breakfast would be waiting. Too much to list here, but I normally went for fresh watermelon juice, fresh cut fruits and a variety of patisserie. Similarly at lunchtime. I normally skipped the evening meal, as this was more than enough food for keeping my fingers moving across the keyboard when writing.
Several times I was taken on guided tours. Firstly the desert tombs of the Nabatean civilisation which occupied the region for several thousand years, controlling as they did the valuable trade in spice and incense. Another day we toured a vast wilderness where Oryx, Gazelle, Wolf and Eagle could be seen in their natural habitat, designated as a conservation zone.
This is how things proceeded for a full three weeks, all incumbency removed except for that of simply being and writing at my leisure. I can barely believe it all happened. Thank you all at Exeter City of Literature for helping to germinate this seemingly improbable seed.
Writers interested in sharing a similar experience can email Mike Ludgrove on boatcraft1@gmail.com.
