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.
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