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.

Don't look now but the world is underwater

Well not exactly but as alluded to in my last post from a couple of weeks ago we have had some rain here in Dubai and I have to say that in comparison with the previous 4 years or so (since we started living here) we we seem to have had more than our fair share of "rainy days" this year (in fact even when it rains here, it does not really pour - unless it happens to be when the rugby 7s is on!). Maybe nothing like the rain in UK but when you are used to sunshine 24/7, grey and drizzily weather can have a disproportinately discouraging effect! We travlled down to RAK a few weekends ago (and stayed at the very glamourous Wal.dorf Astori.a which is another blog post in itself) passing through quite alot of desert which was beginning to sprout grass due to the amount of precipitation.

In any event, today was sunny although the temperature remained low - it has been almost chilly in the mornings - well may be below 15 degrees! However this was perfect for V.'s sports day which took place this morning and she seemed to revel in the conditions - 4th in the girls sprint final and 6 or 7th in the 700m final which was pretty good going given the large number of kids participating in the heats. We also got a letter to say she had been selected to run for her school in a cross-country competetion at the beginning of February (as has her brother A - although he has much more of a track record as a runner)so it is good to see both the kids defy their parents lack of running skills (well certinaly mine in relation to distance running) and excelling on the track!

I've been driving in my car

Given that the above title is taken from a song by Madness it is perhaps appropriate that the subject of this post is driving in Dubai. On my journey into work this morning I was cut up by a White Nissan Patrol and nearly run off the road by a Toyota Innova whose driver was drifting between lanes mainly I would guess as a consequence of the fact that he was talking on his mobile phone at the time (I could see him waiving it towards his ear as I passed him later). I think I have previously discussed the sad problem of indicator lights being broken in Dubai - the number of cars affected is huge and the issue seems to afflict pretty much all types of vehciles - alternativly I guess the problem could simply be that some drivers here do not bother to use their indicators. Whatever the reason, it can make for some interesting driving experiences but certainly this morning the Sheik Zayad road had its fair share of "challenging" drivers. I also noticed that we have since had some rain this morning (fortunately after I had arrived at work). Driving in rain is very much a novelty in Dubai so I imagine that matters did not really improve. Hopefully it will all have calmed down by the time I go home!

Happy New Year!

The first post of the year - hopefuly presaging a more regular updating of this blog following the access issues of last year.

We spent Christmas this year in Dubai along with the Grandparents T and P. The weather has been great so we managed a number of visits to the beach (including a Christmas Day swim)which has provided a nice contrast to the tales of storms and flooding that we have been receiving about the weather in the UK.

After our swim on Christmas Day we had a very traditional (BBQ) Turkey with some Australian friends over in Dubailand which was terrific (and rather than an open fire burning in the hearth the created a firepit Assie style in the back garden and the kids had great fun toasting marshmallows over it).

Apart from a trip to Adu Dhabi half way through the holidays I had the whole Christmas/NY period off so managed to catch up on a bit or reading and also to set up my new Ipad and sound system (Father Christmas was very generous this year..). A less welcome addition to the household was a rat (or possibly a mouse - the jury is still out) in the garage so I have spent some time on the phone to various rat catchers around Dubai to get someone to deal with it. Actualy getting someone to come out was surprsingly difficult - evidently the pest control sector is booming at the moment. The traps have now been set and we are awaiting the results with some interest. Needless to say the resident "rat-catcher" Minnie has disdained any involvement in the process although I do seem to recall her taking an unusual interest in the garage just before Christmas so prehaps she was aware that something was up. Our cat has however managed to lose no less than three collars over the holiday period which has necessitated much angst in (a) finding suitable replacements (cat collar fashion in Dubai tends towards the blingy) and (b) attaching them as collarless cats tend to be impounded (or worse) without further enquiry here.

NYE was spent at an early dinner at the Al Manzil hotel followed by a view of the Burg Khalifa fireworks in the relative comfort and convenience of the end of our road in Al Safa. All in all a very satisfactory holiday.

Broadcast recommencing

I had intended to try to a post every month for November (as per previous years) but for reasons that still remain unclear, every time I tried to create a new post the screen froze on "loading" and no matter what I did it steadfastly refused to allow anything to be drafted. But we are back now so I had better get cracking in case computer starts to say "no" again!

My last post was in July so I guess the starting point is our Summer holidays - particulaly hectic this year. We had gone back to London for a few days to sort A.'s passport out in early July and had a lovely time in and around Kew Gardens. After retuning to Dubai for a few weeks (the kids and E stayed in Bristol) I came back to UK and headed to Bristol where E's parents were settling into their new house and we all flew off to Spain where we had a great week in L'Escala staying at a nice place about 15 minutes from the beach and a short drive from my Sister's place where they were staying at the same time so plenty of BBQ's and lazy mornings drinking coffe overlooking the kids playing on the beach.

We then went back to Bristol for a few days before heading off to Ireland - first stop my Cousin's house in Killarney. We were only there for 3/4 days but managed to visit - in the pouring rain - an undergound cave with ancient stalagmites and tites. We also took a trip to Valencia island (great lunch of crab claws salad in a little cafe overlooking the harbour) along the Dingle peninsula (lovely part of the world) and we also learned all about the Skelligs - it was a beautiful day so we were also able to see them off shore as well as visiting the aquarium in Dingle itself. We also had time for the traditonal day of surfing at Inch(which the kids enjoyed although the Atlantic waters were rather colder than they are used to...).

After Killarney we drove down to Castletownbere where we met up with the America/London/Cork based cousins at Mary Etnas (and went to the sheep racing held by the Adrigole GAA - not to be missed) and then on to Castletownbere where we met up with Kevin S and various other cousins. Spent a great day at the regatta (by a miracle the sun shone as it had two years ago the last time we had been to the regatta) and we had a great time catching up, pottering around on K.s boat and enjoying the guiness in McCarthys.

We then headed back to Bristol and then on to Maidsotne for the last part of the holiday with Dad and M and B before I returned to Dubai followed by E and the kids a week or so later (due to on-going dental issues with V.).

A busy Summer!