Happy New Year!!!

We hope you all have a wonderful night celebrating the coming of the New Year.....or sleeping, or whatever else takes your fancy :) Stay safe, stay happy and may 2007 bring you much joy, love and happiness.

As they say in this part of the world....."Eid Mubarak"

Happy Christmas :)

"Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes."

--Joan Winmill Brown--

We wish you all the most fantastic Christmas. We hope you are richly blessed as you spend time with your family and friends. We hope Santa spoils you all rotton! Take time to relax and enjoy the day as the memories sustain you for the following year to come. Our love to you all. xxx

Vital Statistics

When we first started doing our research into moving to this beautiful country, we very quickly learnt that the average rainfall here was 2 days per year. The first rainfall that we were here to experience was on 20th November 2006....I was extremely happy thinking this would be a rare occurance for us......however...I was wrong, very, very wrong! It has rained HEAPS here since then.

Below is a list of facts as reported in the Time Out Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 51, December 21-28 2006.

It never rains....

(this was the name of the article)

# 53 dams filled to the brim collecting up to 4,620 million gallons of water.

# Dubai's rain makes headline news on UK television.

# 73mm of rain falls in a single 24-hour period.

# 52 rain-related traffic accidents in one day in Ras Al Khaimah.

# Average monthly temperature of 23.5 degrees celcius.

# The heaviest rain since December 1995

We will do our best to send some rain home to Australia as we know how much you need it!

Golf in the Gulf

We had the opportunity to "learn golf in a week" at the Nad Al Sheba Club, so we decided to do it. There are 5 lessons over 7 days (no rest for the wicked!) We began last friday morning, with an introduction to the game, a brief description of the golf clubs and when to use them, the "set-up" position and a few hits (or a few misses in my case, but I did manage to hit more than I missed, i'll have you all know!!!)

Saturday evening had us recapping what we had learnt on friday morning, as well as learning the full golf swing.

Sunday evening was our night off, however being the diligent perfectionists that we are, we went out for a hit, and went through a bucket of balls before relaxing in the club over dinner.

Last night (monday) we went out and had a look at the fairway, before going back to the mats to practice hitting the ball off the tee with a wood (not made out of wood, rather metal, but in the "olden days" this club was in fact made out of wood). This was alot harder as the wood club felt a lot different to the iron club (which is what we had been using consistently up until this stage).

Tonight (Tuesday) we have an introduction to the short game, including bunkers and how to get out of them by chipping and pitching! (I can imagine, a VERY handy skill)

We get a break on Wednesday night before Thursday night when we get to go onto the golf course to learn putting and the rules and ettiquette of the game.

We have had a great time throughout our lessons, with real value being the small group of 6. The instructor goes between each keen golf learner and offers constructive criticism, suggestions and ideas for how to improve your stance, grip or swing. The guys are great, very friendly, professional and lots of fun. I am sure this means more games of golf in the future and further practice.

Bring it on!!!

Angels....Our friends in disguise

It's always your friends that see you through your darkest hours. They may not even know the part they play to get you through....whether it be a text message, a phone call, a message or even just an email....but it is enough to cheer you up and see the light at the end of the tunnell. My friends are the ones that support me, love me and get me though any emotional turmoil in my life.

So, to all my angels, spread out over Australia. I hope you know how special you are to me.

Thank You So Much and I Love You All :)

A Little Warning....

Things certainly are different in Dubai to what we are used to in Australia. There's no doubt about it. Not that these differences are bad.....just different. This was highlighted last night when we were at Carrefour doing our grocery shopping. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Carrefour is more than just a supermarket.....you can buy anything from toys, electrical and household equipment, linen, clothing, shoes, fruit, veg, spices, fresh fish and then all the other items that we would find at home in good ol' Coles or Woolies.

One of the fundamental differences, however, is that once you bag your fruit and veg....you then need to go to the "weighing counter" where it gets weighed and stickered (with a description of the item and a price). As you are all aware (well you should be) in Australia, this all happens at the check-out, however here it doesn't. So, it was quite a long wait for Cameron last night (I had ducked to the toilet) as the girl in front of him had forgotton to weigh her trolley full of fruit and veg (she had two trolleys worth of stuff - poor thing) so, we all had to wait while one of the staff went to get it all weighed and bought back to the check-out for her to pay for her shopping!!!

So, just a warning to anyone who comes over here....

WEIGH YOUR GROCERIES BEFORE GOING TO THE CHECK-OUT!!!

Dubai, Saturday 2nd December 2006

We were supposed to be going to the last day of the Rugby 7's today and even though it was raining we were still eager to go, however, once we arrived (by taxi) at the stadium it was POURING and quite cold....there was no shelter from the rain (apart from shadecloth) and the line up of people leaving and waiting for taxi's went on for miles so we decided to turn around and go back home. Unfortunently, as much as we wanted to go to the games (the best day as it was the finals and presentation of the overall winner) we decided it wasn't worth getting sick over. It took ages to get out of the stadium, but at least we were dry in our taxi, as opposed to the thousands of other people trying to get a taxi.

Here are some photos I took out the taxi window on the way home :)

The roundabout near our apartment - half the road was flooded with water

At the sports stadium - before we decided to turn around and go home

Out the front window of our taxi - mud, mud, glorious mud!!!

The water was so deep in parts that people were wading in up to mid-calf

Dubai Rugby 7's

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi - the cheer rang loud over the sports stadium, the atmosphere incredible. Over 10 teams all competing against each other to be #1. The weather was cool (ish) and intermittently raining, the crowd pumped and the teams ready to score. We were at one of the biggest sports competitions of the year and it was packed. Mum's, Dad's and kids of all ages were crammed in to the best seats hoping to get the best view, despite the rain. Australia won 2 out of their 3 games - the first game was Australia vs. Portugal which, unfortunently we lost by 2 points. (Cameron and I weren't there for that one).

The second game was Australia vs. Kenya.

A great tackle

The Final Score: Australia 24 - Kenya 7

The third game was Australia vs. Fiji.

The score was actually Australia 19, Fiji 14 - they cleared the scoreboard too quick after putting up the correct score, so I could only put this one up :)