A Busy Weekend

A couple of days later than I intended due to being distracted by Burnley's famous victory over Blackburn Rovers on Sunday, here is my latest diary entry. Life continues to be busy both at work and at home. Nothing about work this week, I'll focus instead on a busy last weekend.

Henry was away most of the weekend at a drama workshop, about which more later, so as Jo and I were going out on Friday night, during the day we decided to take Archie and Flossie to a local splash park. We'd not been there before, despite it being very nearby. It was very reasonably priced to get in, and pretty quiet despite the weather really starting to heat up.

Archie and Flossie had a great time, rushing backwards and forwards between various rides. Flossie loved the "lazy river", I can't imagine why (the clue is in the name), and the slides. Archie loved the "bungee trampoline" (I have no idea if that is the right name for it), going on a number of times, demanding to be bounced higher each time.

Eventually we had to tell them the park was closing to get them out of there, although they were suspicious as there were still people going in there as we left. We'll definitely be going back again, quite a few times probably.

Once we got home there was just time for a quick change and to order a pizza in for Archie and Flossie, before the babysitter arrived and then it was time for Jo and I to get our taxi.

We were heading for "Fight Night" at the du Forum on Yas Island, having been persuaded to go by a couple of friends. The evening was to consist of ten bouts involving different disciplines, including boxing, mixed martial arts, and others I cannot for the life of me remember. There was also the prospect of "vertical athletic displays" between the bouts (it's forbidden to call it pole dancing here!), although that was of no particular interest!

Before the competition began we went for a lovely meal at the Blue Grill at the Yas Rotana Hotel. Having over indulged we managed to drag ourselves to the Forum just as the evening's entertainment began. We were delighted to find that we had ring side seats, and that there was actually a good crowd and atmosphere, we had been worried that we may be the only people there.

The evening itself was very enjoyable, fueled by a few drinks and not taking it too seriously. There were some ferocious fights, although it was a good idea not to think too hard about the danger involved for the fighters. The "ring girl" was hilarious, without intending to be, but it would be disrespectful to say too much more about her. And as for the "vertical athletics", of course that was very "entertaining".

To finish off the evening we popped across to the Yas Viceroy Hotel, next to the Yas Marina Circuit, and spent an hour in the Sky Bar. Despite it being late it seems that the track was open for local Porsche owners to take their cars for a drive around the track. Jo now wants to know which evening is for Toyota Fortuner drivers to do the same thing.

After a relaxing morning on Saturday, recovering from the excesses of the previous evening, we went to Carrefour to buy a few bits for our camping trip this weekend, which we are all excited about. It was then time to go and see Henry in the show he had been preparing for all weekend.

He was attending a drama weekend hosted by British Schools Middle East, where drama students from two schools in Abu Dhabi, one in Egypt and one from another country (I can't remember where) came together to work with a well known drama group. They did various workshops during the weekend, culminating in putting on a performance on the Saturday afternoon. Henry really seems to have enjoyed himself, and hopefully got lots out of the weekend, and the performance itself was very polished given how little time they had to prepare.

After the show Henry went off to a dinner to celebrate the end of the workshop, so the rest of us went off for tea at one of the more recently opened shopping malls in the city centre, as if the city doesn't already have enough malls. The restaurant we were intending to go hasn't opened yet, so we ended up in Nando's, which has only opened very recently. Whilst the food itself was delicious, resulting in four clean plates, the service left a great deal to be desired. There is definitely more staff training needed.

So, all in all, another very enjoyable weekend in "the Sandpit", and we returned to work and school on Sunday morning refreshed exhausted for the week ahead!

Thanks for reading, see you all next week.

 

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A sweet addiction

I can't believe that January is almost over. Apologies that I haven't been blogging much, but it has been a busy time at work, and weekends have been busy too. Although I do have to admit that there have been times when I could have been blogging, but I decided to play Candy Crush Saga instead.

I'm sure you all know what Candy Crush is, but in case there is someone out there who doesn't, it is a "match three puzzle video game" (thanks Wikipedia), which in March 2013 apparently had an average of 46 million users a month. I'm rather late to the party, I've been aware of it for some time but have avoided downloading it as I had heard how addictive it could be. However that all changed a couple of days before Christmas when Ann (mother-in-law) persuaded me to have a go. Thanks Ann! ;)

From that moment I was hooked. Christmas and New Year passed in a blur as every spare moment (and some moments that weren't strictly spare) was spent playing, and this has continued throughout January although at a much reduced level as I have had to work as well (how inconvenient!). I've managed to make reasonable progress, enough to keep me returning anyway. And for those wondering, and I've had at least one email asking, you know who you are ;), yes, in the early days I did pay 69p once or twice so I didn't have to wait for my lives to build up again, but my total spending has been less than £3, and since returning to the UAE I have not spent a penny.

Away from Candy Crush our weekends have settled into a routine during January, usually involving doing something with friends on one day, and spending the next recovering. Two weekends ago we hosted a dinner party, which seemed to be a great success, although the song selection on Spotify did cause one or two tensions as the evening went on. This was due to the men (obviously) choosing proper music, but the ladies objecting to most of our choices as they didn't involve Gary Barlow, or couldn't be danced to.

Anyway the evening finished without major incident, other than one person landing flat on their backside whilst "dancing", and two people ending up with scraped knees due to forgetting about the steps outside our front door as they left. Needless to say the three individuals concerned were all female!

Last weekend some Australian friends on the compound decided to celebrate Australia Day with a "Aussies v Pommies" sporting challenge, involving cricket, netball and basketball. They had rounded up a number of their sporty mates, whereas the plucky English (plus a token Scot, Welshman and French man) were somewhat thrown together. Whilst we put up a brave challenge, unfortunately we were very narrowly (honest) beaten in all of the matches. We shall be better prepared next year, believe me, but it was a great afternoon and evening.

Action shot from the netball match

Work continues to be busy but in a good way. I'm splitting my time between Abu Dhabi and Dubai due to my new role, and continue to meet a wide variety of clients and targets. In the last week alone I've met organizations in the following sectors: health, education, dairy, retail, hotels (I knew my degree would come in handy eventually!), financial services, manufacturing, government, and night clubs. I certainly can't complain about the variety, and the important thing is I am really enjoying it.

Arab Health Exhibition in Dubai this week

Yesterday I did a 2.5 hour presentation at the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, sharing my thoughts on audit committees, a relatively recent concept for the UAE. I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to fill the time but there were plenty of questions from the audience so in the end it wasn't an issue, indeed I could probably have gone on for another hour! I managed to attract an audience of about 60, and got some really positive feedback, which I am really pleased about.

Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce

Jo and the kids are fine, having settled back into their routines. Flossie's reading is really coming on, Archie is enjoying playing touch rugby (despite rarely touching the ball, bless him), and Henry has relaunched his film career (see trailer below). Jo is as busy as ever, out and about exploring new parts of Abu Dhabi amongst many other things, and seems to be emerging as the social hub of the compound, the person who knows everyone, and everyone knows her.

That's all for now, I'll try and post a little more regularly from now on.

Thanks for reading as always.

 

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The end of a busy week

I'm sitting down relaxing at the end of a busy week. For various reasons I've had to trek to Dubai every day. It's an 80 mile journey but motorway all the way so it's not a hard drive, just a little boring in places, although I still get a buzz as I drive through Dubai itself and see the various skyscrapers, and particularly the Burj Khalifa.

Things should settle down next week and I'm hoping to settle into a routine of one or two days a week in Dubai, but most of my time in Abu Dhabi. Fingers crossed anyway.

Thursday is our new Friday evening, and therefore tonight should be "curry night" as it always was in the UK. However we have tried and rejected all of the places that deliver around here as the curries they delivered, somewhat surprisingly, weren't up to the standard we were used to in Bolton. Instead we've just had a lovely steak, so I'm hoping Thursday night may now become "steak night" instead!

The focus of our weekend plans is a dinner party we are hosting tomorrow evening. There will be ten adults and goodness knows how many children, and the plan is to feed the kids, then pack them off upstairs whilst the adults get on with enjoying themselves. Jo has been busy preparing today, including buying all the little bits we need that we didn't bring with us.

There was nearly a crisis earlier when Jo went to the alcohol shop, filled her trolley, then presented her alcohol license at the counter, only to be told it had been cancelled (the things I do to control her drinking!!). Thankfully they let her off on this occasion, but I - not Jo - have to ring up next week to find out what is going on. And there was me thinking that when we got Henry's Emirates ID card earlier this week (it has taken five months because he turned 15 during the process which caused all sorts of confusion, before they finally decided that this meant he needed to have his hand and finger prints taken as he is now an adult, but then it took two attempts to get these right) had finally completed all the formalities involved in relocating here. No such luck.

We'll try and get out to the park or something tomorrow morning to enjoy the nice weather and let the kids burn some energy off. I'm nursing a bad back and bruised ribs (maybe I was a little too enthusiastic in the impromptu football match last weekend), which have been pretty bad today, so I'm suspecting I may need to fit in a trip to the doctor.

I didn't manage to get round to doing the lifelogging post I promised in last week's post. I can sense the disappointment from here! Hopefully I'll get chance in the next few days so try and contain your excitement.

Until then I'll leave you with a few of the pictures I have snapped this week whilst out and about.

Can't complain about this as the view whilst eating lunch

Random view whilst sat at traffic lights

The view from a client's meeting room, including the Burj Al Arab on the right hand side

The sun setting over the desert this evening

As always, thanks for reading.

 

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Henry's video of our recent trip to Dubai