Rather disappointing

I had intended to publish a post a day during the month of November but was thwarted yesterday by the fact that the Internet was unavailable at home. It had not been available for a while and it transpired that this was because we had not paid the bills for the last thee months (so hardly surprising). We therefore hunted down an Etisalat payment booth (at Jumeriah Plaza) and managed to pay the bill and get connected to the world again!

In reality yesterday's post (had I been able to make it) would probably have made very little sense as we had spent most of the afternoon with some friends (S and G)at a BBQ. As part of our contribution to the proceedings I had decided to reduce our Pimms Lake (built up over the last couple of months due to me passing through duty free, knowing that I ought to buy something (alcohol is very expensive here)and choosing Pimms only to immediately forget about the purchase so that the next time I passed through duty free I did exactly the same thing. We therefore were the proud possessors of three full litre bottles of Pimms and yesterday's BBQ seemed the perfect opportunity to make some in-roads into it.

A and I therefore went down to Park & Shop and purchased cucumber (pre-chopped as seemed to be cheaper), strawberrys (almost as expensive as the Pimms), apples (Braeburn from New Zealand), oranges, ice, mint and 3 litres of Lemonade. I also purchased a rather groovy jug as receptacle and after E and the kids had helped with the chopping and dicing we made our way around the corner to our friends.

As it transpired the host had also prepared some cocktails so from around 1pm we were drinking Mojitos and/or Pimms - the kids running riot all around us. We finished at around 6pm - fortunately we only had a short stagger back home.

Chasing my Tail

As noted in yesterday’s post, things have been particularly hectic this week. I was making a presentation at one of our major marketing events earlier in the week and was pre-occupied with getting to grips with the subject matter - there is nothing worse than speaking to a roomful of industry contemporaries and having difficult questions lobbed at you without having it least some idea of what the answer may be. However, the main issue pre-occupying me was trying to locate reasonably priced tickets for the F1 this weekend.

I have to say at the outset that I am not a “petrol head” and sitting next to a race track with the scream of high powered engines in my ear for a couple of hours is not at the top of my list of “must dos”. However needs must etc. and as a result of a work commitment, I had to try to source some “reasonably” priced tickets. I only needed one set for the Sunday. However, the tickets were sold as passes for the whole 4 days. There was also a bewildering aray of seating available in various different stands (it would seem that yachts were also available as a viewing base) and the prices from the official suppliers were eye-watering expensive. I therefore adopted plan B which was to see what was available on the “grey” market through Dubizzle and Souq.com. Again the prices were high but there did seem to be pretty good availability although my early enquiries drew a blank in getting tickets for the Sunday only. Having assured various people that the F1 plans were well in train yesterday’s all day meeting prevented finalising arrangements and I had a rather anxious night’s sleep as today was likely to be my last chance to get the tickets organised (the racing starts today). As luck would have it prices were starting to move in the right direction when I logged on to Dubizzle this morning, and I was eventually able to secure front row tickets at cost price from a chap based down in Burjaman who was involved in supplying some of the equipment to the race track – a quick taxi ride and the deal was done (he even provided a receipt and asked for my card!). Hopefully the logistics of actually getting there and sorting out some suitable client hospitality will be as straight-forward and that will be my task going forward.

Having now obtained the tickets and notwithstanding my previous comments, I am now rather looking forward to the event so will keep you posted about how it goes. I did however se anews report earlier today suggesting that there might be "heavy rain" on Sunday - given that we have had (literally) a coupld of drops of rain asince around MArch this would be the hieght of irony - Abu Dhabi apparently usually averages .2mm of rain for the whole of November so I guess it might all fall at once.

Rushed off my feet

I had a meeting today that was supposed to last all morning but in fact did not finish until shortly before 7pm this evening. As a result the carefully crafted post that I had planned for this evening relating to the vagaries of looking for a set of F1 tickets for the forthcoming race in Abu Dhabi this weekend will have to await another day. Hopefully tomorrow will allow me to prepare something a little more interesting......

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain

We've had rain! A rather unusual event for us during our time in the desert and certainly worthy of note. I did not actually see it myself although I did notice the sky darkening in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. E. described it as slightly higher than normal humidity with a couple of rain drops mixed in so not the relentless drizzle that we know in Mud Island (UK) or the heavens opening 'caught in a waterfall' deluge that occurred in HK during the typhoon season. Nevertheless, the car is looking respectably mud-splattered and the car-cleaners are no doubt reaping the benefits by way of an upturn in business.

When we first arrived earlier in the year we had a couple of days of rain in January/February. These were slightly more substantial affairs and tended to make a more lasting impression (mainly because of the lack of drainage and the flat terrain which caused significant flooding).

One of the great delights of living here is waking up every morning and opening my curtains to clear blue skies and sunshine so I am rather hoping that our arrival here has not signalled a change in weather patterns.

Holidays in the Sun

Next week is Eid ul-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice - also known as "Big Eid") - a public holiday in the UAE. As with HK, some of the holidays in the desert are fixed by reference to the appearance of the moon - although in HK there seems to be a little more flexibility as to when the the holiday dates are identified whereas here the actual day has to be identified with precision - for example the Eid-al-Fitri holiday that marks the end of Ramadan can only be declared when the "moon committee" have confirmed the first sighting of the new moon - as a result everyone is kept on tenterhooks until the last possible moment before knowing when the holiday is due to begin.

In HK there were may public holidays - in addition to the Christian or Western holidays of Christmas etc. left over from the British Colonial days, there were also the "local" holidays e.g. Dragonboat day, the Lantern (new moon) festival, the "hungry ghosts". In a good year, when the public holidays fell during the week, this could mean 15, 16 or 17 extra days off. UAE is closer to the UK in terms of days - around 8 - but unlike UK, if the days in question fall on a weekend then, tough luck, they do not automatically move to the nearest working day. This can have unfortunate consequences and of course this being my first full year living and working in the Middle East, we have had a disproportionate number of "holidays" falling on a weekend. I will reserve judgement to see what happens next year before deciding whether the large number of weekend holidays was merely unlucky coincidence or an attempt to ensure that we all worked harder!

Tell me why I don’t like ..... Sundays

Quite apart from allowing a rather lame pop cultural reference to an old Boomtown Rats song, one of the main issues that encountered in working in the desert is that Sunday is a working day (Friday and Saturday are the formal weekend days here – with Friday being the equivalent of Sunday elsewhere in the world with most people taking a day off work, spending time with their families, going to Mosque/Church etc.). So while your weekend starts earlier, it ends earlier and while friends and family elsewhere in the world are contemplating their Sunday roast, noses here are firmly back on the grindstone. For me I am sure it is a cultural thing – having spend the vast majority of my preceding years associating Sunday’s with the “day of rest” – to go to church , play football/cricket, do homework (School years) steel myself for work (post-school years) and generally take stock of life, it has proved quite difficult to come to terms with the early morning alarm on a Sunday summoning me to work. Since Friday is Sunday this means that Saturday is a bit of a hotch potch. In HK, Saturday was a day for relaxing and, in the evening, going down to the Main Street for the footy. I still try to get down to the footy (although the Red Lion has replaced Main Street) but I always have to be aware that it is in effect a school night (although because of the change in time difference – HK 8 hours ahead, UAE 4 hours ahead of GMT – the sport does tend to finish rather earlier). The other advantage is that Sundays at work are usually free of email interference from the other offices (although this also means that Friday’s can be overtaken by queries and questions from colleagues elsewhere in the World). I am not sure that I will ever truly get used to the idea of working on a Sunday although hopefully I will make a better job of it than a contact working here who told me that whenever he arranged meetings or deadlines for “the beginning of next week” he subconsciously assumed that this would be Monday – not good.

Getting connected

In HK all our televisual needs were taken care of by NOW Broadband (run by PCCW, HKs main telecoms provider). For around HK$900 (c. GBSterling 80), we received the complete range of sport (including premiership) and movies, pretty much all that was available by way of children's tv globally as well various BBC news and Entertainment stations. In reality, TV at TaiTamTowers was mostly dominated by Boomerang!, a Children's station that specialised in re-running old Scooby-do, Tom and Jerry and Popeye movies (which as you can imagine found great favour with Mum and Dad). As the name suggests we also got broadband connection for our PC (and a landline service at a nominal cost).

In the desert, things are very different. The broadband and TV packages are (generally) supplied by different providers (although some of the more modern developments seem to have combined packages available). The cost is also significantly higher - broadband and landline connection come in at around AED800 per month (c. HK$1,700) and we have just signed up to the minimum cable package which provides us with some children's TV (not Boomarang) and extreme sports (ie tractor racing from the Urals)for the princely sum of AED89 per month. For all its deficiencies (incomprehensible terms and conditions and penchant for cold-calling at 10pm at night anybody?), PCCW's package was pretty good and relatively cheap. Someone could make a fortune putting something as convenient together here.