Arabic phrase of the day

Easy one today: Abu Dhabi means ‘father of the deer’ – referring to the country’s population of sand gazelles.

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Quick update

I've been busy signing off some of my final PwC audits today, but Jo has been busy with various tasks relating to our move.

She started this morning with a visit from another company about shipping our belongings over to Abu Dhabi. They seem like a good company so we'll see what the quote looks like. The main thing Jo found out is that if we want our belongings to arrive in Abu Dhabi around the same time we do, we will probably have to have everything packed and ready to go by around 12 July. That's a week before we go on holiday to Florida, and isn't that far off so we need to get moving.

Jo spent most of the rest of the day getting her head around the visa application process. It turns out we need to get various documents (degree certificate, etc) authenticated by a solicitor, then send them to the legalisation office in Milton Keynes, and when they come back we need to take them in person to the UAE Embassy in London for final authorisation, before everything is sent to BDO in the UAE for them to submit the application. Jo managed to find a solicitor to do the first step this afternoon, so the relevant documents are now winging their way to Milton Keynes.

The final piece of news from today is that we have a viewing on Monday by someone who may be interested in renting the house. Fingers crossed for that.

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Learning Arabic: Phrase of the Day

When going to a new country it is only fair to show some respect by making an effort to pick up some of the local language. It will be even more important for me given the business discussions I will be having. So between now and when we move to Abu Dhabi I am going to learn a new word or phrase every day. Maybe a bit of a tall order but I'll see how I get on.

So, with thanks to the "Go Arabic" twitter feed, today's phrases of the day are:

Tasbahoona Aalal Khair: Wake Up Blessed and Happy

Ahlam Saeeda: Sweet Dreams

Ahlam saeeda until tomorrow

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Deer sighting

Jo has been convinced we have had deer visiting our garden for a few months, so back in January I put the wildlife camera in the field. Four months, and 700 photographs and videos later (most of them rabbits, birds or nothing!), she has been proved right as the clip below shows. She is very pleased!

 

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Welcome to our new mini blog

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