All about V.

Having talked about the (potential) genesis of V's name I thought that I would do a more general post on how she is getting along. She is as much a force of nature as she ever was although perhaps a little more restrained in her approach to life although still takes no prisoners if she is upset. She has settled in well at her new school and has been doing very well both academically and also in the sporting environment. She is an avid reader (we have had a couple of major discussions about why she is not allowed to read HP Half Blood Prince during my current HP-fest) and is taking after her brother in the speed that she demolishes books. She is very happy in her own company although she and A (mainly) get on very well together - whether in relation to their shared obsession with Minecraft or playing together generally. She seems to be a little reserved at school and does not have any particalr "best" friends and at home (if not reading or playing minecraft) she is happy enough in her own little world dancing around the room day dreaming. Unfortunately the cricket at Safa Park has now stopped as at the end of June this year (possibly because of the canal related works)as she and A used to really enjoy this on a Saturday morning and we still have the various cricket balls that they both won on occasions dotted around the house. She does athletics, cookery and netball as her after school activities and seems to enjoy them all (she is certainly someone who goes a little stir crazy if she does is not running around and burning off some energy). She still prefers pasta, gravy, pork and rice as her main food groups although does not say no to prawn and lobster. She is very tall for her age which stands her in good stead for the competitive sports and she enjoys singing and dancing (she and her cousin N did a great video to Katy Perry's Roar during the Summer). She is very engaging when she is in the mood and currenlty has aspirations to be an author. She still belongs to the nevery explain never apologise school of diplomacy when things are not going her way but generally she is a very engaging and loving daughter and we cold not ask for more.

What's in a name

The desire to post a blog every day in November has not exactly disappeared but it is struggling against other demands including a further trip to Abu Dhabi (yesterday) and also , finally, finally, getting through the HP series so that I started the final book (which I have not previously read) last night. The Half Blood Prince was interesting (apart from the actualy plot) in that it gave me a clue as to where E. got the name for our daughter from. V. has quite an unusual name althouh it is less unusual today than it was 8 years ago when E. first suggested it and I have always wondered where the inspiration came from. E. could not remember but I did notice that there is a V. (albeit with a tiny part) in the Half Blood Prince and I also see that it was published the Summer before V. was born and I know for a fact that E. read it (she does not disagree that this might have prompted - albeit unconciously - her to suggest the name) so I have put 2 and 2 together!

(pre) University Challenges

While Dubai is well served with schools, one of the great challenges is trying to get your child into a secondary school/college of your choice. In general terms, key decisions have to be made at the time you put your kids into primary school as the most popular secondary schools - JC, DESC, DBS, etc (all the major schools in Dubai seem to be known by acronyms) - use related primary schools as "feeders" ie children at DESS have priority for entrance at DESC although they all still have to do an entrance exam. If there is no spaces available at the time you want to put your kids into primary you either have to move your child from the school that you have been able to get into at a later date if a space becomes available at the "feeder" school for your preferred secondary or you take your chances that there are spaces left after the feeder school pupils, siblings etc. (all of whom are usually higher up the priority pecking order) have had taken up their places in Year 7 of the target secondary school. In the case of the popular schools (all of the above-mentioned) this is easier said than done given the pressure on places (there is one selective school - Dubai College - which does not have a feeder school but again pressure on places is intense and as there is no sibling priority either there is obviously a risk of families with more than one child ending up with different school runs and non-matching holiday timetables).

When we arrived in the desert finding schools with places for two children in separate years was extremely challenging and in the end we had very few options. As it turned out we were very fortunate as the school where we secured places worked very well for us. However, although the owners (GEMS) had a recently opened a secondary school for which it was a feeder, we were a little concerned about sending A. to it - mainly because of the size of the secondary (something like 4,000 pupils once at full capacity) so we had to take our chances through the entrance exams for are preffered schools which basically started in October last year (with DESC) and lasted until the New Year. It was quite interesting to compare the testing process with the 11+ in some parts of the UK. My Sister's daughter had taken her 11+ at the beginning of Year 6 and there were some similarities between the types of 11+ questione she was being asked and the questions in A.'s entrance tests - quite a lot of non-verbal reasoning and "qualatitive" testing as well as some of the more traditional English and Maths based comprehensions. Moreover, the entrance applications for all the schools were fairly complex affairs (requiring examples of their academic and sporting success and details of the child's personality) so the whole application process was very stressful. Fortunatley A. came through it all with his usual aplomb and seems to have settled into his secondary schoolwell. Having been able to move V. to the "feeder" school to the college A. is now at, hopefully the next time we have to do this will be considerably less stressful!

Quizzical looks

I think I have previously written (possibly on my old blog http://taitamtales.blogspot.ae)about pub quizzes. We used to do them very regulaly here - Fibber Maghees and the Dhow and Anchor at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel being particular favourites. However, due to the gradual reduction in availability of fellow quizzes mainly as a consequence of people moving back to the UK (most notably G and A, R and V), Quiz nights have been few and far between over the last 12 months or so (athough hopefuly with Dad's arrival on Thursday that might change for a bit). In any event, E and I unexpectedly had a chance to go to the annual school quiz night last Thursday (at DOSC - which made three visits in less than a week having hardly set foot in the place for almost the whole of the nearly 5 years we have lived here). It was very well organised - a large number of participants, excellent food (the butter chicken was particuallay good) and pretty challenging questions. The other members of our team (mainly mates of E from the shool run) were very good so I managed to avoid embarassing myself too much and was very pleased to have been able to name the makers of the album Random Access Memories (Daft Punk since you ask although goodness knows where I dredged that up from as I cannot claim a great deal of knowlege of their ouevre) and whilst we did not come first (or indeed in the top three) we did not come last. All in all a really good Dubai evening as it was very pleasant to be able to sit outside on a balmy (if a little breezy)evening after the heat of the Summer.

Honestly

I have been really busy so have not only failed to catch up on my blog per day post but have fallen even further behind. Still at least my Mou' for Movember is coming along reasonably well although after some scathing comments from work colleagues towards the end of last week about letting standards of personal presentation slip forced me to confirm my endeavours as opposed to simply forgetting to shave in the mornings - hopefully might get a little more sponsorship though.

Failed Again....

Hmmm. Day 4 of the post a day challange and far from making two posts for failing to get on the score sheet for the first day, I am now 3 posts behind the curve. To be fair yesterday started off with a trip to Abu Dahbi where I had a very interesting trip around one of the newer educational instituations followed by back to back meetings so I have decided to make an early start on this post in the hope that it is completed before the end of today. (I was also somewhat distracted last night by my current trip through the Harry P cannon).

I thought that I would devote the next couple of posts to a general catch for the last 9 months or so since the last major post. We had various visitors in the early part of the year including my Father who was with us in January and Febraury where we managed to watch a good deal of the Dubai Duty Free tennis (also rather unexpectedly joined for a few days coinciding with the tenns with an old school friend AL). The tennis is fast becoming a favourite in Safa Towers household (not least due to the mayhem in actually getting hold of tikcets) and this year was terific with Venus Williams winning the Ladies title (which we took the kids too having widely over provisioned in terms of tickes - E and I separately applied online for tickets given the fact they are like gold dust and there was an unfortuante breakdown in communications which led to sufficient Ladies final tickets for the extended family and friends....not cheap!). I did manange to secure Dad a week pass for the Mens Tennis and joined him for most days including the Semiofinals (where I had a corporate invite from NH which turned into an excellent day with Federer v. Djovovic a highlight) and then Roger the Dodger won the Final - which I also managed to see with Dad having fortuitously picked up a spare ticket while waiting in the queue earlier in the week to pick up the tickets I had managed to get).

Dad and I also managed to get tickets to see Henry Blofeld and Tim Rice at the Dubai Literary Festival (discussing cricket) which was very good. March was also exteremely busy with a trip to Seoul followed by a whistle stop tour to UK on business and then to Rome for the Rugby (England -v- Italy)with the two Richards (had an excellent time as managed to spend pretty much the whole day at the Vatican museums accompnaied only by a audio tour guide).

Back to the Future

I cannot believe that I have not posted since January! (Actually given my extremely sporadic attendance on this blog I guess it is not so surprising). It is now 2 November and that means the challenge to post every day for a month has come around once again - and I have already missed the first day! I will make up for this by making no fewer than 2 posts today and the focus of this one is the fact that last time I posted it had been raining here in the Sandpit and lo and behold last night we had what appears to be a fairly substantial downpour judging by the puddles around the Villa when I left this morning - the first since before Summer. In fact there had been some talk of rain earlier in the week due to a tropical storm making landfall in Oman - fortunately, as we had taken a couple of days off at the Kempin.ski in Ajman as it was half term for the kids, this did not eventuate so we had sunshine all the way for a lovely couple of days (which also included a sighting of a huge crab - or at least its claw as that was all that was visible from its hiding plce in the rocky promontory demarking the edge of the Hotel beach - as well as numerous fish). Nce hotel which we ahve cvisited beofre and whcih is very handy for howm - around an hour's drive dependign on traffic.

Apart from the rain, last night also signalled our delayed Hallowe'een party (BBQ and apple bobbing as well as carving what was a very convincing Harry Pumpkin designed by V and knife handiwork by yours truly). We had been invited to DOSC (Sailing Club) on Friday for a party for one of V's school chums so the festivities in Safa Towers had to be delayed. Yesterday also signalled a return to Al Safa Park footy - after a Summer of inddor football in Al Quoz this was the first outdoor game. It was not a terrific success from my perspective - having not played since the beginning of September after the indoor pitch had casused my knee to start twinging this was my first runaround for a couple of months and boy did it show - some absolutely terrible schoolboy errors (compounded by no contact lenses so not ony was I almost immobile but I could not see the ball properly ..... at my age that is not a great combination although I did manage to score a goal getting on the end of a cross affter breaking from defence so it was not a complete disaster. Must do better at the Partners v Staff gme later this week....).

Apart for the post a day challenge it is also Mou'vember - raising money for charity by growing a moustache which E. challenged me to do yesterday. So two challenges at once - let's see how I do.