I want to ride my bicycle

I think I have mentioned elsewhere that we have been gearing up for some cycling here in the Dubai this Winter (including modifying Em's car to include a bike rack at a fairly significant cost...). Today was a perfect day for having a ride - beautiful sunshine, temperatures in early 30s etc Unfortunately V. choose today (the first time her Mother has accompanied us on a ride we have done a number of times before) to fall off - twice - fortunatley no major injuries but I suspect having a ride around the block might be less easy to wrangle next time!

Long Lunch

A rugby 7s tradition in Dubai is the long lunch where the great and the (not so) good gather for a nice meal and a few drinks to be entertained by a couple of speakers (usually ex-rugby players). Yesterday the Crown Plaza at Festival City held the 2015 edition and I was lucky enough to be invited. I have been t this event a few times in the past and it is always good value. This year we had ex-Scotland and Lions scrum half Andy Nichol and Eric Rush as speakers. Eric Rush was particualaly good. I recall him as a ferocious competitor in the All Black jersey but he was an excellent speaker - apparently his Father was from Northern Ireland and he had soem very good stories. It as a terrific day only spoiled by the fact that I managed to put my blackberry in the jacket pocket of the jacket on the back of the chair I was sitting on towards the end of the afternoon having forgotten that I had moved chairs. Having then returned to my original seat and put my jacket on to leave when I could not find my blackberry and spent a fruitless 40 minutes rootling around amongst the debris of the Dinner for it - particulally inconvenient as I am due to go to Korea next week. Fortunately the Gentlemen whose jacket I had chosen to deposit my blackberry contacted me this morning so I have been re-united but it was an uncomfortable period being blackberry-less!

Summer Holiday 2015 - England Part 3

I have had this in draft for a while and have therefore decided to try to finish off the details of our Summer holidays before I have completed forgotten what happened! Part 2 can be found . As was perhaps to be expected, after the excitement of my big party, the rest of the week was a little very quieter and we spent it pottering around Maidstone and its environs. Fortunately, the weather improved (it could hardly have rained any harder!) during the course of the week and allowed us to catch up with M, and N and J and for most afternoons the kids were able to play together. This included a visit to "Go Ape" at Leeds castle which allowed V. to overcome her concerns about traveling down zip lines and for all the kids to walk around the treetops. It actually looked a lot of fun (although as with everything else it was not cheap). We also managed our traditional trip down to Hastings - this time on V's birthday (9 already! - a separate post to follow on this) where she had expressed an interest in visiting the traditional sweet shop in the old town followed by lunch at White's fish restaurant where they do excellent platters of seafood which the kids tucked into with gusto. I drove the kids down and we had a great time singing a medley of songs from the musicals (mainly Mary Poppins and Chitty, Chitty Bang, Bang) and more recent hits from Katy Perry et al. We were met down there by E., M. and Dad and parked up on Rock a Nore car park where I was able to admire the new apartments (some still for sale even though they were completed 2 or 3 years ago) built in the style of the Fishermen huts.

Whilst not exactly freezing, the weather during our time in Maidstone was a bit wet and overcast so we were hoping for some better whether during our forthcoming trip to Ireland (although avoiding rain in Ireland is perhaps not the most likely of outcomes!).

Rugby World Cup

I was lucky enough to attend two matches during the recent RWC. The first was the NZ - v - South Africa semi-final which I went to with RP on a rainy day in South West London. Although the score was close (20 - 18 to the All Blacks), SA never really looked like they were going to score a try and Dan Carter scored a sublime drop goal to effectively seal the match. It was the first time I had been to Twickenham for years and the Stadium looked in really good nick - the whole day was expertly organised and I caught up with RP at Holborn from where we made our way by Underground to Richmond for a swift pint in the Railway Tavern (actually a rather nice venue - worth a further visit) and then the Rugby special shuttle to the stadium. We were in the first row of the second tier behind the posts and so had a great view of the game (as well as being protected from the rain that swept in as the game progressed). We were also able to take rugby special shuttle back to Waterloo from the stadium (although it took quite a while) and we had an excellent meal at Café du Marche.

The second game I saw was the Final and this took a bit more planning. I secured the tickets in the ballot last year and so flights etc. had been arranged well in advance. I had booked the Novotel at Brentford and so my Sister drove us all up and Dad on the Saturday morning. Although overlooking the M4/Great West Road, the Hotel was fiendishly difficult to locate in a car - our first attempt ended with us being parked next to it but with no access to the car park so we had to go round again and then drive the wrong way in to the underground car park. Dad, A, M and me then took a cab to the Stadium. Despite dire warnings about difficulties in accessing the ground, we were only 5 minutes walk away and it was a beautiful sunny Autumn day - slightly misty with the sun setting over Twickenham.

This was a a really fitting end to a lovely week weather wise - we had met P. V, C and M at Greenwich Park (where we visited the Observatory and the Maritime Museum) the previous weekend where the weather had been equally good) and during the week had a lovely visit to Hastings (where we picked up some ace Crabs) a great few days with M and B down in Chichester where we had managed a walk on the South Downs and a visit to RAF Tangmere. The weather had been less good when we met up with W, K and J (old friends from HK days) in Worthing the following day after a damp stop at Bosham Hoe (where the road literally disappears under water at high tide) but en route to London we had stopped off for a visit to Brighton where our walk around the Lanes in the Autumn sunshine stirred some old memories of Es time in Brighton!

So Final day was an appropriate finale to a glorious week and we arrived in good time to grab some pasties for lunch and A and I secured some commemorative tops from the merchandise shop and also Dad paid for a couple of the "Referee radios" - which gave access to the referee's microphone and also match commentary. We were sitting high up in the stand opposite the players tunnel and had great views all around the ground (I should think so forgiven the cost of the tickets....). We were treated to a terrific match with NZ dominating the first half but the Aussies storming back in the second getting within 4 points of the All Blacks before the boot of Dan Carter (including another sublime drop goal) saw NZ home. The ref radio is a great innovation. Nigel Owens had a good game. We stayed for the firework display and the presentations and then headed back to Richmond on the shuttle bus before getting a cab almost immediately so we were back at the Hotel by 7:30pm. It was a really terrific day. I have never been to a World Cup final before in any sport (in fact none of us had although M had been at Cardiff when the French beat the All Blacks in the World Cup) so this was a very good way to break a duck!

Post a day in November

It is that time of the year again where I try to make a post per day for the whole of November, and true to form I have managed to miss the first day(mainly because we were travelling back from the UK having spent a rugby-themed 10 days there). I will try to do better than last year where I think I managed to cover only half the available days. There are a number of things that I can talk about and hopefully recording them in this post will embarrass me into actually writing about them! Topics include finally completing a comparison between life in HK and life in Dubai which I promised to do 5 years ago when we first arrived in the Sand pit! I think I did a comparison of taxi drivers and taxi-driving (will need to check in the archives) and I guess thee are a number of other interesting comparisons to make. I also need to complete the run down of the Summer holidays (and also our more recent trip to the UK). So all in all, plenty of material!

TGBBO

(The Great British Bake Off for the initiated).So the final was last night and due to the vagaries of the BBC Iplayer and our time zone I have not yet watched it so have been desperately trying to avoid seeing or hearing any reference to the outcome at the office or in the Media. Not easy given how it seems to have attracted a lot of attention. I must admit that I am a late (very late) convert to this show. I do not watch much TV other than live sport (although the Peter Kaye show "Car share" was an honourable exception). However, I am almost messianic in my enthusiasm for TGBO - talk about the zeal of the convert! E first introduced me about 2 months ago when the most recent series commenced and it has been required viewing ever since - I guess it is the combination of gladiatorial combat (each week a contestant is eliminated based on the assessment of the two judges Mary Berry (all Grandmotherly charm and old fashioned common-sense and briskness) and Paul Hollywood (bad cop to Mary's good cop)) and comfort cooking (that looks amazing, I bet I could make that).

Our devotion has led us to download the whole of the previous series (Series 5 which included the great freezer scandal) which we have been watching in parallel with the present series. Even the kids enjoy it which obviously reduces the length and volubility of the debate about watch we should watch on TV. We have even been moved to do our own baking. A rather underwhelming Ginger "Magic" cake which probably had too much pepper and ended up in the bin as it had the texture of quiche (although having subsequently looked up on the internet what it was supposed to be like does not seem to have been a million miles away from the intended end product - inedible anyway) and a rather more successful cherry cake based on a Mary Berry recipe (flouring the cherries ensuring that they were evenly distributed in the bake).

As is my wont, my new enthusiasm has led to various kitchen related purchases so now I have any number of baking trays, loaf boxes and I am eyeing up a Kitchenaid mixer (only £600 so have tried to curb my enthusiasm on that one). Anyway, will be interesting to see who won when I eventually get to watch the final episode.

Brief Intermission

I was actually doing pretty well on the holiday descriptions (and had even started part 2) before work intervened and I have been up to my ears ever since. I will, hopefully complete the stories of our Summer escapades shortly (and might if I am feeling particularly diligent also recount our skiing adventures in Switzerland in February and our language classes in Granada(!) over Easter (we have been quite busy this year...). However, for today I will content myself with a short update following England's disastrous exit from the RWC last night at the hands of a much superior Australian team. Chelsea also managed to loss yesterday (again) so as sporting weekends go, it has not been a great one. Dad and I were consoling each other on the telephone this morning(obviously about England's loss, he was quite chipper about Chelsea's defeat....) and concluded that at least we saved ourselves heartbreak later on in the competition (not much of a consolation I know!).