After sitting in horrendous traffic trying to get to the dealership, which makes me wonder why I am bothering with a car, I have finally signed all the papers, given the necessary DNA samples (joke) and paid a lot of fees to make a car of my own a reality. And here she is, well almost. Holding thumbs she will be mine today!
So I admit that I have been somewhat, yes OK very, remiss in updating this blog since I arrived in Dubai which is rather a shoddy effort I know as the whole point of this blog was to record my thoughts and impressions about Dubai. I don’t really have a good excuse except to say that I had no connectivity to anything for the first week, and for the last few days I have had a laptop etc but no internet connection at home. So today is the first day I have had both together along with a few spare minutes.
I left Jozi on the 28th July after (barely) managing to get everything finally packed, chucked, donated, stored and shipped where necessary without having a nervous breakdown. Thanks so much to Mom, Chris, Marcel, David, Terri and Mandy for keeping me sane and helping me out! After the final push to get everything into my 3 bags (yes well that didn’t happen and 2 more boxes were left to be shipped later) I was an emotional wreck. All the goodbyes in the preceding week had really taken it out of me and poor Chris & Rosa dropped a rather teary-eyed Cat at the airport. Thank goodness we had upgraded me to business class (those air miles finally came in handy) as I could get some rest. I was immensely grateful that we had decided to send the cats ahead as dealing with that as well would have been the last straw. And yes they arrived in one piece, rather unimpressed as you can imagine after being in their boxes for almost 24 hours, but unharmed.
Dubai City twinkled below the plane like a be-jewelled Persian carpet, clearly load shedding is not a problem here. The flight was good, but 8 hours is just not quite long enough for a good nights sleep (well the economy class seat is probably more of a factor here) and not short enough to stay conscious throughout. At least I did manage to watch “Elizabeth: the golden age” which I enjoyed, certainly showed an unexpected perspective of the Queen.
Despite the masses of people who seem to converge on Dubai International Airport the journey through passport control was painless, this is probably more a function of a British passport than any unexpected efficiency of the airport itself, but it was nice to be greeted by a smiling immigration official for a change. 60 days stamped in my passport and I’m ready to go! Of course I loaded up with irish whiskey in duty free before collecting my bag. And that was pretty quick too, so happy days all round.
I wrote this a few weeks ago whilst sitting in a workshop in Kenya on the 13th of May this year funnily enough. Stu had accepted the position and the ball had begun to roll..
I imagine.
Thundering hooves and shifting sand,
a breath of air.
Artificial oasis’s upon
a dry and unforgiving land.
A woman laughs.
The chink of glasses raised in toast,
a successful delivery.
A well newly sunk
which will bring great hope.
I expect.
Searing outdoor heat and cool interiors,
a shopping mecca.
Cultures combined where
ladies dine in comfort with warriors.