New Apartment Al Majara

Friday's the first day of the weekend here and its like a Sunday, so not a bad day for beating the traffic to shift all our gear the 30km down Sheik Zayed Road to a different apartment. Fortune smiled on us and we got upgraded to a 3 bedroom so Jack has his own room- the two bedrooms are all full and I gave the agent a lot of pressure over ensuring there would be a room available for us. The apartment's great and the internet is free which saves a fortune compared to the last place which was screwing us for 13GBP a day. We dumped the bags and got the kids into their cozzies, to go and relax by the pool and cool off ourselves- packing and moving is always a bit stressful! Looking forward to about a week here, wish the firm had placed us here when I originally asked. Nothing is ever that simple, think it needed Liz to nearly snap to get them to help. The kitchen is a lot better in this one, so we might even have a bit more cooking in-house....eating out is reasonably priced but it isn't sustainable every night! We had dinner (after homework) aside the marina then found ourselves lying outside on cushioned settees looking at the night sky through the skyscrapers. The temperatures are getting much more pleasant now so people are starting to emerge more in the evenings.

An evening at the Burrows'

(Pic- our villa- the end one- ready to move in 01 October) I worked in the head office at Bur Dubai, had a meeting about the next bid and it was agreed that I will go to Parma next week to meet with the consortium. Left work and Liz was already down at Bruce and Lisa's villa with the kids, waiting for me to join them for dinner. Picked up a bottle of wine from the apartment (a rare commodity during Ramadan) and drove down to Umm Suqiem. Their villa is gorgeous, detached with a pool and the size of a small palace! Bruce had a collection of rugs from his travels, including one from Turkmenistan that i recognised from the pattern (similar to mine). There were Hoopoes feeding on their lawn (Chris). We had a lovely dinner prepared by Lisa, sat outside and talked in the warm evening to the sound of calls for prayer from the mosque, whilst the kids played in the pool then watched DVDs. We couldn't stay too late as we are moving apartments tomorrow.....

Villa Thrilla and Marina

Liz took the Property section of the Gulf News out today and went villa hunting with Lorna, the first mum she met at the school, who kindly offered to drive her round while I was at work. This has borne fruit as she found the perfect villa for us in Barsha, ten minutes from the school, the marina, ski dubai, mall of the emirates and the beach. We're pushing the paperwork through to get a deposit placed by the company, so fingers crossed it will be our before the furniture (which arrived at port today) clears customs in about a week.

I had a busy day at work preparing for a big tender and arranging a meeting for all the team preparing the outline design that needs to be submitted. I might be flying to Parma Italy on Mon for a meeting with the Contractor.

After I finished we drove out to Barsha to have a look at the villa which looks great and has a big shared pool and gym. Plenty of room for guests to stay too...Fingers crossed it all goes through smoothly.

We went to the marina for tea and had Iftar at the Marina Walk then met again with Lorna and her girls Katie and Heather who played well with our lot. It was a gorgeous setting between the yachts, a computerised display fountain (that the kids all played in until drenched) and amid illuminated palm trees and glittering skyscrapers. Things are definitely looking up. The kids have all picked their activities options at school- Jack is doing snowboarding, tennis and football, Amelia tap dancing and art, Madeleine tennis and art (pottery I think).

I've booked flights to come back to UK for Christmas- hopefully by then Liz and the girls will be happy enough here to make it a temporary stay and return to Dubai!!

Work kicks in

Well, being allowed to slope off to look at Villas has probably just ended today as a large tender landed with me as the Bid Manager, not just that but its with a contractor making a late start so we only have two and a half weeks left of a 6 week bidding period for a major project needing outline design proposals. I cancelled any viewing appointments and rang Liz to let her know we were having a "rest". The best villa we had found to date, and had been waiting and pinning our hopes on, has fallen through as the Landlord has purportedly gone into a dispute with hte previous tenants, meaning no let for at least three months. At least thats the story, I suspect they were holding out for a better rent offer, it was a nice villa.

On the plus side, we have had the OK to move from our current apart-hotel in Deira, north of the Creek, to a two bed serviced apartment in Dubai Marina, nearer to the school and it has a lovely pool area and a massive Costa on the ground floor, so the kids and Liz may never be heard of again. Moving on Friday, which should be fun, could be three trips - one for people and two for cases.

We stayed at the hotel restaurant for evening meal- Iftar, after everyone had been fasting for the 13th day of Ramadan. The staff are really friendly as the kids are the only ones in the hotel that we've seen since the first couple of days. The food can't be eaten until the signal for Iftar is given, then there is a buffet banquet of Arab and Lebanese cuisine. Even Jack is finding things he likes so its a change from complete junk. There are soups, a huge cold table with houmus, tabbouleh, stuffed chillis, salads, spicy bean mixes, olives etc, followed by a choice of about 6 main courses including a whole roast lamb. Desserts are fruits or small arab pastries, after which we are almost too full to finish with tea and coffee. For us all it comes to 255 dirhams or about 35GBP including the tip.

We discovered the pool had reopened after maintenance three days ago which was annoying as it had been good to let the kids blow off some steam after school. Still, we've got it tomorrow....

Still villa hunting

A typical start today, alarm 0630 followed by me turning on all the lights and MTV on all the tellies to get everyone awake before putting on the kettle and taking a shower before Jack dives in first. Not that I'm a complete sadist- school starts at 0830 but that means getting the kids into a taxi for 0745. Amelia is usually just out of bed by 0715. We are in Ramadan currently so school hours are 0830-1330, I can't imagine what its going to be like after Eid (the end of fast celebration), when the hours revert to normal which is an 0745 start and a 1430 finish. We need to be living nearer to the school asap. This is partly in hand, we got a call from an agent today who has a serviced apartment for us next to the Dubai Marina, for about the same rate as we currently pay (well the firm does). Once we are shifted I can trade in the current hire car (Mitsubishi Outlander at 3000AED/month) for two Mitsubishi Lancers at about the same overall rate, which will make Liz mobile and ease a bit of the current stress. I will have a commute in the morning but its only about 30km and mostly motorway style driving in the opposite direction to all the heavy traffic.

At work I discovered that Haitham, one of my old workmates is running the highways business for Atkins in Qatar, out of Dohar, so we will be working together soon, which is great.

After I got back from work we managed to get out to view a couple of villas in our target area- both 5 bedrooms and both around our max budget. Surprisingly both were nice, spacious and clean looking and in a good area. The first had not much land around it though and no pool - shared or otherwise. The agent for the second one let us down on turning up, but rang whilst we were eating at Spinneys supermarket mall to give us directions, the villa was just open go on in and have a look around. Not so much crime around here clearly. It looks great I thought, huge with a big garden, its own pool (admittedly not big) off road parking for two cars with automatic gates etc. Only problem seemed to be that all the kids didn't like it which I can't explain, they preferred the other which had none of the above. We put an offer in for both and are waiting to hear from the landlords- it seems to be a sellers market for this type of gaff though so we'll have to wait and see. I need to have some money left after the rent, to spend and save.

Thats it for now, I've pasted in a pic of Holly for good measure, tho its more relevant to my last blog- Im just getting the hang of a pic per blog and waiting for the upload to take place.

Weekend

After a late start on Friday we headed for Bur Dubai with Liz driving to get used to the traffic and driving on the right hand side of the road in a left hand drive car. We tried to pick up Jack's mobile where we had left it in an Indian supermarket, to get it unlocked so he can use it with Etisalat. It wasn't ready so we had a drive round Jumeirah, Um Suqiem and Dubai Marina.

At around 5pm we headed for Madinat Jumeirah, a shopping mall and centre built on an arabian style with loads of restaurants and bars, hotels, villas and its own waterways system for ferrying people from one part to another. It is all built to look like a scene from arabian nights. We met up with Bruce and Lisa from the school to eat and I had my first alcohol for three weeks, courtesy of Liz driving :-) those three bottles of corona tasted good. We took a boat around the waterways after dark which was fantastic with all the lights through the palm trees.

Saturday we spent unsuccessfully villa hunting, but we also looked at a couple of serviced apartment complexes nearer to the school so hopefully Liz can have her own car and drive the kids to school- the taxi trips have been taking an hour each way from where we are in Deira meaning Liz has been spending around 40GBP a day for the privilege of sitting in a taxi. One behind the Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai looks great and will save us a lot of grief, we are now waiting for a vacancy over the next couple of days so we can move across town. Saturday evening we met up with Mark and Sarah, Dad and Liz at Mark and Sarah's apartment on Sheik Zayed Road. We had a relaxing afternoon looking at baby Holly, swimming in the pool and eating takeaway pizza during the Liverpool-Birmingham match live.

New Baby

Must add we went round to see Mark and Sarah with new baby Holly Elisabeth. She was very cute and tiny, expected when you weigh around 5lbs. our kids passed her round from one to the next all evening! Liz was able to have a glass of wine, she was gasping after about 10 alcohol free days. I was driving so still havent had a beer since we got here, 17 days altogether now.
I'll see if I can add pics into the blog now I've started.

Opening fortnight

Well this is my first go at blogging, to record our adventure out of UK to live, learn and work in Dubai, United Emirates.



We flew out of Manchester on Sunday 02 September 2007 after a tearful departure from the Glegg Arms with many of our friends and family seeing us off. Lynda and Billy Kearney had kindly offered to drive us to the airport, needing two cars to fit all the cases in. We had a job loading the trolleys with all the cases at terminal two, but eventually checked in and whiled away the hours to take off.



After a 7 hour flight and loads of in flight movies on Emirates, we landed at Dubai in what seemed to be pretty baking heat, 36 degrees at around 8.30am local time. The hotel had sent a driver with a people carrier to shift us to the apartments, Al Sondos by Le Meridien at Port Saeed, just north of Dubai Creek near the Al Maktoum Bridge. The driver had bottles of chilled water and face towels for us which was nice. None of us had slept much so we all crashedout for the whole of Monday 03 Sep, surfacing in the evening for a meal in the hotel restaurant.



The apartment is a serviced suite with a large lounge/diner, small kitchenette, two bedrooms with en-suites, a small washroom with toilet.



To summarise our first fortnight or so:



Settling in

All the children and Liz have been homesick to varying degrees and at different times so there have been a few bouts of tears and wanting to go home, usually at bedtime for the kids, but more when we have any phone calls from friends and family in the UK. Madeleine misses her teacher Mrs Benson. Jack has not been too bad since the first few days, making new friends at the school has got him over that a bit. He is already MSNing some of the girls I've noticed. Amelia had a big cry today which was linked to getting a stack of homework making her wish she had never come. The children and Liz all seem to have made friends by means of starting at the school, which has helped. Liz has been for coffee with some Scottish mums and made friends with Lisa from South Africa who has girls in Amelia and Madeleine's classes. Liz also got a call from Helen Beasley after her sister had put her in contact with Liz. So ups and downs really as its still early days.



Finding somewhere to live

This has been proving more problematic than I thought. Our budget is 250,000AED rent per year, and there are some reasonable villas to be had for this but the school the children are in is Wellington International and we need to be reasonably close- the areas nearby have generally the highest prices in Dubai for villas, most with 4-5 bedrooms are nearer or over 300,000 AED per year. We have put an offer in for one in Umm Suqiem, not far from the Burj Al Arab and the schoiolwhich has been accepted verbally but there is some sort of dispute between the tenants and the landlord which has stopped the keys handback and also the paperwork to confirm the deal. We can't move in until our furniture arrives and clears customs, which isn't going to be until around 03 October anyway. It would just be nice to know we had this one in the bag formally so we could stop looking. We are going to view some more in Barsha on Saturday and Sunday, also I want to have a look at 3 bed shoreline apartments on the Palm Jumeirah, which for around 210,00AED means the girls would need to share a room but the apartments look gorgeous from outside and they are right onto the beach with a pool and gym, beach club.



School

The new school is fantastic, fabulous building and facilities, enthusiastic younger teachers, the chance to mix and learn with other children of all nationalities and especially for Amelia who will have all the help she needs with her maths. We had a meeting with the Achievement Centre teachers and they very very understanding and knowledgeable, it was an immense relief. We came out knowing we had made a good choice. The worst element has been the round trip from our hotel to the school which is around 60km and has been costing Liz 40GBP a day to run in a taxi. The traffic is so heavy and chaotic around the hotel and Makthoum Bridge that Liz hasn't yet got the confidence to drive on her own, which is understandable. I am trying to get us moved to an apartment nearer to the school until we are sorted with a more permanent residence.



Work

The job has started Ok but has been disrupted by the fact I can only get to look at villas during the work week. I am putting together prices for the project as a first task. I have had help getting set up at the bank, driving licence, hire car, mobile phone, laptop and everything with the company as my sponsor. I sponsored Liz to get her UAE driving Licence. There is a lot of red tape to go with all this activity, continual copying of passports, photographs, eyetest certificates etc etc. My application has been put in for a residents permit, it takes several weeks but after that I can buy a car instead of renting.



Play

We have managed to get to Ski Dubai, Jack and I skied whilst the girls watched through the windows drinking hot chocolate. It was good fun doing the learner class together (first time I've skied) and good value at around 20GBP each including skis and suits. We have been to eat twice in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel with Liz's friend from South Africa, Lisa and her rugby loving husband Bruce. Liz took the kids to the pool area there after school one day and there was a guy taking photos of them underwater. Ours were all amused by his showing the shots to them and saying "Very Nice" Borat style, without realising why they thought he was funny.

Liz has had coffee in the Madinat Jumeirah, Mall of the Emirates and we met Helen Beasley and her husband Nick for a barbecue at their villa in Umm Suqiem, which was very kind.