The Other people in our life

I make it sound as though there are only the four of us in our family, but of course it has grown there is Kathryn's partner Steve a full Kiwi I believe 3rd generation, and Iain's wife Claire from good old UK, we could not have asked for two better additions to the Breadmore Clan........
That was of course until the Grand kiddies started to arrive. Firstly there is Ellis 6 1/2 .....Iain and Claire's eldest, followed by Ben 4 .....Kathryn and Steve's number one son, then along came Harvey 3 brother of Ellis and finally Alex 2 Ben's play mate.
These cousins so far have not met each other , but this will all change as Iain and family emigrate to NZ in 3 weeks time. It will be just wonderful for Grandma and Grandad to have all the little ones on one continent. So another big pull to return home for.

Ellis

                                                                               Ben

                                                                   Harvey

Alex and Dad

 

Hash House Harriers/ There they go

Or H3 as most runners know it.

Sunday is hash night here in Dubai, when Eric spends a couple of hours in the desert running a hare and hounds route, normally about 6 or 7 kms.

After the run they stand around in a circle with a large bonfire ( for what is it "not hot enough here") and tell stories and get a "down down" ( a beer which has to be drunk straight down ) often sat on a block of ice ....don't ask me why !!!! for any misdemeanor the RA ( chap in charge) can come up with...it is all very light hearted and fun.

Here in Dubai there is always food afterwards as well... a BBQ or a curry, bought from an Indian restaurant which arrives in big pots similar to the ones school dinners used to be served from.

It is a very social evening and is open to anyone who wishes to come along, once someone has run on hash they learn about every hash in the world and there are some hundreds in different countries, so where ever you go you carry your kit with you in case it is hash night where you are.

I go along as mentioned before as the driver........Dubai has a Zero tolerance on alcohol and if you are caught drinking and driving it is jail for 18 to 30 days on top of that you spend up to 18 days in jail before you get to court......it has happened and there are people in Dubai who can tell you about it.

It is so strict that if you are involved in a bump with another car, you are both breathalysed regardless of whose fault it is...and bingo if you have been drinking.....bye bye for a while.

Drinking here is not legal unless you have a licence or are staying in a hotel, of which we have not or do either......a licence is obtainable when you get a residence permit, which we still do not have.....so as far as the law is concerned we should not be drinking. Oh Yeh!!

BOM Quilt

Yesterday I collected the BOM quilt from the quilters.

She has done a really nice job of it...... I feel that it has been a little over quilted, but nether the less it looks great, so I spent the rest of the day putting on the binding.  So now it is ready for the meeting in Setember. Oh! I hope the members like it.

The few who have seen it are ready to purchase the kit, so hopefully the others will be also.

Sunday or Monday

Today is Sunday, now that is Monday in the Arab world as the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Confused so are we! as the weekend has just changed in the last few months.

The weekend was all ways Thursday and Friday so back to school and work on Saturdays,

Now just to help really finish of what small amount of comprehension you thought you still possessed when you are getting grey and long in the tooth, someone in their infinite wisdom has decided to move the weekend.

So, to make things clear Friday is now Saturday, Saturday is Sunday and Sunday is Monday...there you go as clear as mud..yes!

As you can imagine it is all to do with the rest of the working world, to give the Arab world longer time working when the rest of the world is working, so now offices are contactable 4 days a week instead of the previously three days, now being Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.........and I wonder when someone asks "what day is it " I have a mental problem. So God bless the date and day line on my tool bar.

This quilt has nothing to do with the weekend but I thought you may need something to bring your mind back to normal and calm your grey cells, this was made by a friend here and I would love to do one also, so she going to dig out the pattern for me. It is called Butterflies in the attic

We have been cleared

Well ! What a thing, to have your blogsite in Quaratine because they think you are causing "Spam". Only this could happen to me,but I guess it is all in a day of a blogger.

So can I warn folks not to hit the " next Blog" button that was all I did and up came "cr*p" and whoosh! there I was "off air", so Big Daddy is watching you, but nice to know they can stop nasty blogs etc.

What do I do in Dubai

Finding something to do here during the day is rather difficult if you are not into sports or sailing. There is an arts centre and swimming pools, classes on self protection in all languages, you can go on photography courses, and learn to dive.
Now normally these things would appeal if I was younger for some, if I had not done others at different stages of my life, my digital camera really....do I need a lesson? Now diving appeals so may be look at that one at a later stage.

So, what do I do?

well!! I spend most of my time thinking to myself " no don't do that ironing the maid will do it when she comes"... all the rest of the time I do the normal living and keeping body and soul together, thinking about what we will eat each day.

In between these times

I sew. Embroidery or Quilting.......here in the Indian quarter of Satwa they have the most fabulous fabric shops, where you can buy Quilting fabric a yard for $2 NZ or 75p UK, there are notion shops or haberdashers where you can buy anything you could ever want from beads to bra inserts, braids to bobbins, bet you couldn't name anything you couldn't get there.

So far I have made a few things ... Quilting. I have made the sample Quilt for the Block of the Month( explanation later) a couple of bags to carry stuff around in, Finished a couple of pieces of embroidery and made a few pincushions and needle cases these have gone around the world as gifts or with folks who have left as a memento or Christmas swaps.
 

I have joined the Dubai Quilters Guild an amazing group of about 60 ladies of numerous nationalities who Quilt, many of whom did not quilt before they came to Dubai, a lot who have been quilting all their life. We have a joint meeting once a month and in the meantime there are Bee's... small groups who meet weekly or fortnightly.

Well ! as per normal I ended up on the committee in June and a spare space was BOM co-ordinator, so in I jump 2 feet first with my mouth open wide...."I will do that I say" when no one else opened their mouth.

BOM......now anyone who quilts knows about BOM's..... block of the month. It is dealt with in different ways in different places. It can be a kit that you purchase from a shop which you receive every month containing everything you need to make that months block. Or it can be just the pattern you are giving each month and you supply your own fabrics.
 

So I had to come up with a pattern and organise 24 kits of the fabrics. All By September meeting.

So off we go I have a pattern and my  sample of the quilt is as we speak being quilted..not by me...I have given it to the lady with a long armed quilting machine, yes! people have jumped on to the band wagon here and started doing professional quilting, how fore sighted and astute can you get to see the need, why am I always one step behind.

I searched all the fabric shops for just the right fabrics and disaster they could not supply 45 yrds of a particular one, or 20 yds of another so the fabrics had to be ordered via USA, this was done and I was waiting on tender hooks for their delivery which finally happened on 4th August talk about cutting it fine...
But yesterday the packs were finally bagged up and the patterns are all printed, I am having panic attacks at night dreaming I have forgotten to tell them something vital in the instructions...but on checking all is well.........

So September 30th is BOM day, when all these good folks hand over their hard earned cash for a kit ... hopefully!! how awful if no one wants to buy it, they at this present moment in time have no idea what the BOM is or what colour the kits are all will be revealed on the 30th, by the way there are 4 colour ways...hows that for ambitious.

So keep your fingers crossed for me.......  So have not been wasting my time in Dubai......

I am getting good at this !!

This is where we live here in Dubai
UpTown  Merdiff

first floor  appartment 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms
and the very large balcony above the basement entrance ... it will be home for 3 yrs. So we are off to Ikea to furnish the whole place.

Dubai and why are we here

Dubai August 2007

We have done an awlful lot of travelling and living in 11 countries in 30 yrs, Dubai hopefully is the last move before we go home to New Zealand..........

Believe it or not we do actually have a home in Rotorua NZ. Where we hope to retire to one day, this day is not so far off now, may be another year. Then we will be hitting 65 ish and that is the magic age I have been told, and home we go, unless we get an offer we can't refuse I guess.

This is the best I have in the way of a photo here in Dubai of our house....taken a few years ago.

To sum up Dubai...it is somewhere to be... you don't actually live life here, every thing is bigger and better than anywhere else, from Shopping Malls to Buildings, Roads to airports,

they are as I speak building the tallest building in the world already at 143 floors.........me, I will believe them as no way will I be travelling up to check or even going into it from the ground floor ......we at present do not know the final number of floors there will be, they have not divulged that secret yet.

The roads here are 14 lane highways, can you believe they forgot the pedestrian, you can't get from one side to the other of the main street in Dubai.....they run buses to ferry people the length of the highway to the next juction where the bus travels down the opposite side to the previous juntion to turn around and come back. Only in Dubai.!!

the Airport extention during the last 3 yrs is almost finished and a new airport is being built some 40kms away, the extended airport has a life of a couple of years...I did say this is Dubai.

If anyone says they are here for the lifestyle, then they are not being honest...everyone is here for the money.

At this present moment in time it is summer here temps. of 40 to 45 on a regular basis, not a lot of going out being done, although Eric still insists on going running on a Sunday evening with the Hash House Harriers, about 7 kms and then stands around in the desert and has a beer or two and something to eat. Me, well I go along and drive home, so he may drink as the laws in Dubai are a zero tolerance when it comes to alcohol.

The good thing about Dubai...yes! there are a few...it has got to be the food, everything is available from one end of the globe to the other it is catered for here, and to a very high standard and believe it or not, not expensive. There really is no need to cook.

I hope to keep up this blog ... but it may be like the diary each year, filled in for a week in January then it is forgotten, not for any other reason than just overlooked.