Hi Folks,

Its been a busy old week in the Wannabe household. The girls arrived back from Blighty last Friday night. We had Halloween to look forward to, including a doggy Halloween party. But the main event, of course  was a birthday. Yes, It was Birthday Week. Small daughter is no longer a 7 yr old little girl. No, now she’s a sophisticated young lady of 8 yrs. Big difference believe me.

The Return

After a week in beautiful Scotland, the girls returned to the UAE last Friday night.  Feeling benevolent, I managed to

Small enjoying the Exec lounge at Schipol.

upgrade them to Business Class. Who says I’m not thoughtful.  A much more relaxed way to travel.

The flight was due into Abu Dhabi at 20.10. I reckoned 30 minutes  to negotiate immigration and collect bags, so if I were there around 20.20, I’d have ample time to park, grab a coffee and be waiting at the arrivals.

Traffic Woes

2nd guessing the traffic on the E11 from Dubai to AbuDhabi can be a fraught business. I reasoned it would be fairly quiet that time of night on a Friday, so allowed myself an hour. Wrong. It was  frantic.  No idea where everyone was going, but they were all in a hurry. I lost count of the number of times I was flashed to get out of the way. Of course there was traffic in front of me and to the side. Plus I was at the speed limit, but no matter. I just gritted my teeth and pulled over as soon as it was safe to do so. This allowed the car in front to be treated to a headlamp strobe show by the impatient pillock behind him.

As ever, when the traffic is like this, it all ended up slowing down as we bunched together, then sprung apart. A bit of stop / starting for a few kilometers. And then it was all fine.   Fortunately no accidents. Just lots of lane jumping and impatience.  But this meant I was past my hour limit.

The Airport

The airport was mobbed when I finally got there.  No kidding, the world and it’s mother all seemed to be arriving in Abu Dhabi that night.  Fortunately, I managed to easily find a parking space. All the cars were trying to get as close to the terminal as possible, so lots of spaces at the edge of the car park.

A mad dash to the arrival hall ensued. It was 20.30 by now and just as I walked in, there they were just emerging. Perfect timing. What was I worried about.

The journey home was uneventful and once safely back, I finally got my hands on the scrumptious pork and cider pie they had brought  back for me. Heavenly. Oh and I was jolly pleased to see them too, obviously.

Halloween

When I was a kid, Halloween wasn’t that big a thing. I used to carve a turnip lantern. I still remember the smell of turnip gently being cooked by the candle. But we never Guising *. It’s certainly all changed now.

*(trick or treating to non Scots)

The Doggy Party

That’s S’No Frog. Snugg’s at his party

Halloween started last Saturday in unusual fashion. Snuggles the wonder dog is a frequent visitor to a place called My Second Home. It’s a great idea. Obviously it gets rather hot in the UAE. There are also not that many areas for dogs to run around.  My Second Home is an indoor, air conditioned facility where doggies and their owners can go to play, letting the dogs romp around off leash. They also do dog and cat boarding and doggy day care. It’s a huge facility, all astroturfed out and not as niffy as you might think.

They had organized a doggy Halloween party. The dogs could dress up, as could the owners. Snugg’s went as a frog prince. There were various doggy costumes. A sushi dog was my favorite.  There were dog goodies scattered about and as a special treat, an enormous pile of ‘snow’ had been procured. This was dumped in a big pile on the AstroTurf for the dogs to make of what they would. There were a few Huskies who looked delighted and parked themselves on the ice and refused to budge. Snugg’s investigated, but wasn’t overly fussed. He’s more of a ball chasing dog. Most of the hounds had a sniff and suffice to say, there was a lot of ‘yellow snow’ by the end of the day. But good fun was had by all.

Trick or Treat

On Halloween proper, small daughter and wifey got dressed up again.  This time, they went off with a bunch of small

Wifey and Small Daughter dressed to kill,

people to demand sweeties with menaces, from around the neighborhood. I volunteered to stay home man the sweety bucket at our place.  There is a code. If you place Halloween decorations at the front of your house, then you are fair game. We had made a token effort with the decorations. You can’t get big turnips here, so we went for a pumpkin and carved it. A few witches, skeletons, bats, spiders webs and spiders were hung outside and we were open for business.   I bought a small mountain of sweets, in fact I thought I had overdid it. Not a chance.

First visitors were 4 young ladies. Early teens I would say. Exquisitly made up. A lot of effort went into those face paints. They gleefully bade  me, ‘trick or treat’, then proceeded to take vast handfuls of goodies from my proffered sweety bucket. Good grief. I thought I would be eating rubbish for a week and there it was. Gone.

Needs Must

The Halloween House

We got lots more visitors. Most a lot younger than the first lot and not as greedy. None the less, I was in danger of running out of sweets. So I improvised.  Wifeys breakfast bars were added to the bucket. A few packets of cocktail nuts, but only the ones less than a year out of date.  Some crisps and finally, in desperation, I emptied Wifeys stash of hotel toiletries, pinched from many hotel stays.  Still, you can never have too much shampoo or conditioner and Emory boards are always useful. I feel a little bad for the kid who got the shoe shine cloth, but I’d only used it the once.

The Main Event

Whilst small daughter enjoyed Halloween, the main event was of course her birthday. It fell on the Monday. A school day. I thought that was bad luck, but she was delighted.  Wifey had purchased a whole pile of party tat whilst in the UK. She also bought some white paper bags. Small daughter decorated dozens of these bags, signing them, “Bags by Sarah B”  She really did put a lot of effort into the decorating and they were good. They were then filled with assorted party tat and were eventually taken to school to be distributed to her class mates.

Waffles and Cream

Her birthday started stupidly early as usual.  Today however, she bounced out of bed unbidden and was in fine good humor. Not the usual zombie like creature that has to be reluctantly dragged kicking and screaming from her pit. For her birthday breakfast, she had asked for waffles, strawberries and fresh cream which was all duly demolished. Bit early for me. I had a nice strong cup of tea.

Breakfast was followed by present opening. It was nice to see her actually opening and reading her birthday cards for the first time. These are usually discounted in favor of the bulkier parcels. Not this year. Our little girl is growing up.

The birthday tea was McDonalds. She likes it, it was her birthday. Why not.  But the big birthday treat was left until the weekend.

Atlantis

We had booked her in to swim with dolphins at the Atlantis dolphin center. I’m hopeless at keeping surprises so she knew all about it, but that helped the excitement to mount.  Yesterday, we were all up early and headed off to Atlantis on The Palm.

Atlantis Hotel on the Palm, Dubai

We have stayed at Atlantis before and I found it a disappointing experience, especially given the cost. For similar price I would far rather stay at the Emirates Palace or one of the Jumeira Hotels. When we stayed, we had to ask for a room change as ours was a tad niffy. Vaguely moldy smelling and a bit tired. Not what we expected at all.  It was also stupidly busy, making it too crowded for my tastes, but proving they must be doing something right.

That aside, the dolphin centre was great fun. You can argue dolphins shouldn’t be kept in captivity and I do tend to sympathize with that view. But most of the Atlantis dolphins were bred in captivity or rescued and, on the face of it, seemed happy and contented.  Certainly the staff gave the impression that they care deeply for their charges. Whatever, I confess we all enjoyed the experience.

Swimming With Dolphins

Wifey and Small Daughter with Black the dolphin

Wifey and small daughter were to swim with the dolphins, whilst I stayed on the beach taking photographs.  I like dolphins. They are fascinating creatures, but I have had dolphin  encounters before and I wanted to try at capture some images. Hence I was armed with a decent SLR. I once took a small compact camera on a dolphin cruise off the coast of Bali. These were wild dolphins and unpredictable, not working with a trainer. Wasn’t my best work. I ended up with literally hundreds of sharp, crystal clear images of splashes were a dolphin had just been. So I was determined that wasn’t going to happen this time.

The dolphin adventure program was well thought out and good fun. I did get some images I was pleased with. Better yet, small daughter was also pleased with them, so that’s what it’s all about.  It’s a memory she will keep and hopefully remember. It also reinforces her respect for all animals. She was suitably impressed by these wonderful and intelligent creatures. That has to be worth while, hasn’t it?

Small Daughter giving Black an appreciative kiss

The Water Park

After the dolphins, we spent the rest of the day at the adjoining Aquaventure park. Small daughter loves these places. I hate them. But it was her birthday weekend, so I gritted my teeth and froze my nether regions in what felt like Arctic temperature water to me. Well, it was 22ish degrees. But that felt really cold.

We actually lasted until it got dark, much to my amazement. I had planned dinner at Bread Street, the  Gordon Ramsey restaurant at Atlantis. Sadly, it didn’t happen as I forgot to book a table. School boy error, I know. So it was off to our own standby, Mr Toads Kitchen.   Small daughter like Mr Toads. She doesn’t know who Gordon Ramsey is anyway, so all was well with the world.

She’s off to another birthday party today. School tomorrow and back to a more routine existence. Well, almost. It’s a staycation at the newly reopened Jumeira Beach Hotel next weekend. Read all about it next time.

Bye for now.

PS.

Finally uploaded the new songs. Click here to visit the song page. Oh, and be kind .