Maid in England

This is Amelia in Jumeirah Beach park and not to do with the blog title! The park has a nice grassed amphitheatre area in the centre, where the parkie has the great job of going around all the girls sunbathing in bikinis asking them to cover up.

Liz finally caved in and we are going to look for a maid, we put an ad in the Gulf News and I was blitzed with calls to the mobile today. We met a Sri Lankan lady called Fue at the Lulu cafe in the evening, she would be perfect but she has been in Emirates Hills for the last four years where the villas have much bigger maids quarters. according to her references she is fantastic at ironing, cooking, cleaning and also drives her own car. We are going to have a week try out to see if we are all happy, so we'll see. She has a husband called Raj who is very nice, but we've got a slight feeling we will be looking again next week.

Safa 2 Football party

After the Beach- party on dudes! Safa 2 Park has a sand football pitch, basketball and grassed areas that can be booked out for parties (free)- perfect siting for a bouncy castle and a good venue for a football party. All Maddy's school pals there again and jack even had a chance to show off his barefoot footy skills on the beach football.

Life's a beach

On Saturday we made it to Jumeirah Beach Park! Hurrah! The kids have been three times now mind. it costs 5 dirhams each to get in, but the park itself is really nice, loads of trees, picnic areas with BBQ stands and manicured lawns with grass so regular and almost dry rubbery you would swear it was astroturf. We hired some sun beds on the beach and soaked up some rays, paddled, the kids dug tunnels and we had lunch at a beach front bar. Nice that its right on the doorstep!

Double Bubble party weekend

Well, for Madeleine that is, with a party booked on Friday and Saturday afternoon. My plan was to go to Jumeirah beach park at some stage. Friday morning I got up early, did a half hour in the gym, swam, steam room and half an hour sunbathe on the front balcony before everyone else was awake. I have just sussed out how to work the controls for the steam room so it has spurred me on to do a bit. We had a slow start, and Jack wanted to meet some friends at Mall of the Emirates who were going to the cinema. Amelia then got invited to the cinema too so we gave up on the beach and took them all to the Mall, dropped off the two and went window shopping with Madeleine. Jack and his friend Joe went to see a chick flick with two girls from school, Amelia saw enchanted with her school friend from Australia, Chloe.

After the mall we set off to Safa for Manal's party, which was in th egardens in the middle of their compound. There were absolutely loads of kids there, the whole class, her family and all the kids in the compound.

Joys of motoring

Whilst the drive down the 7 lane Sheikh Zayed road is a bit daunting at first, it's not too long before you are undertaking, squeezing in, cutting up with the best of them and not even noticing how everyone else is doing it. The general bustle is just occasionally livened up with the odd bit of complete driving lunacy but it's surprising how little anyone is surprised to hear of it, whatever it might be. Of particular note in the town is Indian guys on bikes riding in the opposite direction to traffic, which still catches me out sometimes. Some of the better things include the tank of petrol for 8GBP and the guy that fills your tank and squeegies your windows clean while you sit in the car and wait.

Work Daze

This is the view across the street towards our site, you can just make out the gantry crane that lowers the tunnel segments down into the station area to feed behind the tunnel boring machine. Apart from all the graft, the site being located town centre-ish means that its not too far to eat out for lunch every day- which costs about 30 Dirhams (4GBP) for a one course Chinese Meal or Thai noodle dish with a drink. Walking too far becomes out of the question when it hots up, but for now it's very pleasant to venture out into the sunshine, blinking..

Short weekend

15 Feb-Day after valentines, and weather is hotting up. I got up early, did an hour at the gym and had a swim through the pool which was freezing still as the heater has broken and the wether isn't warm enough yet to make it redundant! I did a run to Lulu with Amelia and bought a leg of lamb and some veg, then we all went to the pool in the compound for a swim and a sunbathe. Even Liz went in but it took a while to get her in over her waist! Mark and Sarah came round for dinner at 5 o clock with Holly and we had a nice Sunday roast dinner all around the table, mint sauce, gravy, roasties, great even on a Friday!

The roadworks outside the villa has just kerbed right across our entrance way in to the villas, so we have to go off-road across the sand now to drive in- Liz has got 4WD but mine is 2 wheel so a bit more important to keep moving over any soft sand! I nearly put Liz's back out yesterday though, going over a section that gave you a side to side bone-shaking.

Amelia has just signed up to do tap dancing after school, which we are really pleased about, i think she is just starting to settle in properly. Jack has re-joined snowboarding for the term and wants to add football to tennis on his after school sports. Madeleine has signed up for cookery so that should be fun.

At work, I am working every other Saturday, this week was a worker. I am due to take over the finance for the project after the end of February so will have my hands fairly full from then on. My time is spent on all the variations and claims at the moment, I have had to put out two job offers in the last week, for more staff to deal with the volumes.

At the beginning of the month Jack went away into the hills near Hatta for an Outward Bound type camping trip, they did dune bashing, kayaking, climbing, abseiling and all the desert barbecue stuff. Amelia had a school trip out and around the Creek, visited the Dubai Museum and rode on an Abra, one of the small boats for ferrying across the Creek. Liz went too as a helper and had a great time. Another trip with the school took Liz and the girls to Jumeirah Beach park, which sounds really great and is going to be one of our next destinations for a weekend picnic.

We've all got our visas now, which will help with some of the red-tape- for example we can now get a cheque book! I'm not sure if I'll write any cheques though, its just as easy getting cash here and paying with notes.