sandCat in Dubai

Category: reality

  • HAPPY NEW YEAR from Dubai

    I know it is technically not New Year until tomorrow, at least not according to the Gregorian calendar which we use, but as we already had Islamic new year on the 28th December I thought it would be safe to say it anyway. We planned a low key-ish celebration at home with a couple of friends; in fact the prawns are marinating in the fridge as we speak and the chocolate mousse is half made. And it seems it’s just as well we didn’t spend money on tickets to any of the many new year’s eve (or “NYE” as they call it here) parties, as they have just all been cancelled today by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. I apologise for the long title, but this is how he is always referred to so I had better follow suit. The cancellation of all celebrations is in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza who are under attack from Israel. So I guess this means no fire-works on the Palm, or hooting on the streets. We will still have our braai, and some champers, but we will be doing it very quietly!

    new turf

    Yes, we have replaced the turf in the garden. Even though we don’t own the villa we decided to spend the money as we are going to be here for at least another 6 months, and possibly longer, and also we were growing very tired of the increasingly patchy grass. It seems, according to the gardener anyway, that we had Gulf grass before, and this, combined with a merciless assault by some vicious fire-ants, left us with a very sad excuse for a lawn indeed. We are now the proud owners of Sharjah grass, which hopefully will survive a little better. Unfortunately we had to poison the ants in the process, and whilst I am not proud of this I am very happy with the results so far.

    I hope you all have a lovely celebration tonight whatever you might be doing. If you are going out, please travel safely. May 2009 (or 1430 AH if you prefer) be your best year EVER!
     

  • Christmas in Dubai: part 1

    our tree
    [our tree]

    It may not be Oxford Street, London or Times Square, NY, but here and there you will find festive touches around Dubai that will remind you that we are now days away from Christmas. Being from the Southern hemisphere the fact that it isn’t snowing hasn’t made it feel less festive, we are used to summer Christmases spent swimming and braai-ing so the blue and cloud-less sky hasn’t felt any different for us, although there is a slight chill in the air now dusk and dawn which is most unexpected. Yes, temperatures have been as low as 15 some mornings on our way to the gym, which doesn’t sound that bad until you remember that a few months back we were hitting highs of 50+.  Yes, I have even decided to buy some slippers as my toes are cold. But I digress. Due to the sizeable number of Christian expats living here, estimated to be 316,000* people over 19 denominations out of a total population of 4.3m**, 3.7m of which are foreigners, stores are carrying a good range of yuletide rubbish, from your traditional (Christmas trees and stockings) to the absurd (blow-up snowmen), which should help with getting you into the xmas mood.  Christmas day itself is not a holiday here, although my company does give us the day off, whilst Stu’s doesn’t.

    (more…)

  • desert detox & “going native”

    My recent silence is not for any reason other than my lack of anything interesting to report. Today we reach the halfway mark in our 10 day detox. Stu has a rather inflamed and sad gallbladder, so instead of just having it sliced out of him we decided to try an alternative approach first. Our new naturopath has placed us on a rather uninspiring diet of brown rice (organic of course) and veggies. So we have been laying low and not going out much, except to work, which has left me with no restaurant stories, nor anything else for that matter, to impart. However I am sure you will be delighted to know that we are starting to feel a little more energetic now and hopefully are on the easier end of this 10 day program. Besides there are really only so many ways you can dress brown rice up so that it is not boring. The picture below I took yesterday of some of the lovely fresh fruit we bought to sustain us; South African grapefruits, grapes and granny smith apples plus some other bits. I was actually saying to Stu some months before we left SA that there was not a granny smith to be seen, this is clearly why as they seem all to be here in the supermarket in great green groaning piles.

    nice fruit

    (more…)

  • u-turns are legal but don’t hold hands in public

    It may seem from my posts that we are living it up, here in Dubai. It may seem that we are out every night eating expensive food in opulent settings, but of course this is not so. I only write about the highlights, but there are many days in-between where we are getting on with living here, going to work, going to gym and generally carrying on as normal. This weekend was rather low key, the only outing we made was to the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary, which was lovely, but today I wanted to fill you in on what the rest of our life here looks like, and how living in Dubai works (for me) in reality.

    Ras Al Khor
    [Ras Al Khor bird sanctuary]

    (more…)