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....