Quiz night

The Dubai Country Club has lost it's premises in fact they

have been demolished....that is another story.

To try and keep their members interested until they rebuild

they have social functions at different places.

They ran a quiz night at the Dubai Off Shore Sailing Club, so we went along with Eve and Malcolm and Tika and Phil.

2 sets of golden oldies and a young couple, we thought this should help our chances !!

The first questions were on "Pop music " if we had been on our own we could not have answered one question of 10, but God Bless Phil he was almost on the ball and Eve was there with the 70's and 80's pop. so we managed 4 out of 10

Then came general knowledge...yipee.... we did better here 14 and 18 on 2 rounds of 20 questions, so we did not do to bad after all. And could leave with our heads up.

Here we all are, not the best of pictures but it was outside and late.

New Glasses

I picked up my new glasses, wow! the world is a much brighter place, defined with edges on everything.

The down side is I didn't change my appearance...and no I didn't look like the advert I showed in last blog about new glasses.....now ! can I have them for false advertising.

This is a friend Eve at a Quiz night we attended last night...see next blog.

Tomorrow is Dubai World Cup

Saturday is Dubai World Cup Race.

The richest race in the world ( but then it would have to be ..wouldn't it) worth 6,000,000$, yes !! 6 million dollars to the winner, there are a few other races but they get a measly 4 and 3 million dollars...

And Yes! we are going....I spent yesterday looking for an outfit...but no hat, Tika a friend and I spent from 10am to 4.45 pm walking the shops and guess what ?

It was M&S ...Marks and Spencers to uninitiated where I found most of it.

So watch this space for photo's... I wonder if the sun will shine !!!

The Chefs and the Quilts

A Couple of weeks ago here in Dubai, Mala and Shanka the owners of Classic Quilts Shop, ran a International Quilt Show with work shops, bringing 4 international teachers from various corners of the world to tutor. People sent quilts from all over the Middle East and a few other countries It was a great success and will be held bi annually.

I helped hang 125 Quilts the evening before the main show day .... hard work... but the show had the services of a company which made the quilt stands and also did the work of hanging which was a "God send" of course, 4 chaps up and down the ladders.... the down side was these lovely chaps could speak little or no English, but they very soon learnt..."left a bit"..."right a bit" ..."up a bit ".

The show proved very popular and was viewed by all sorts, including the chefs from the hotel.

How great to see some men visit a Quilt Show, I wonder what they were thinking, I bet I can guess, like a lot of men.

" Why, do they buy all that fabric, cut it up and resew it all together again"

This is the overall winner of the show

A wall hanging showing a group of Arab Ladies huddling together in a sand storm.

Helps if you can see

For a few weeks now I have been saying my glasses have been bent or dirty or may be out of focus, or the print on the packet has been printed smaller, today I had to hold the paper from my pills at arms length to read it.

Yes!! anyone could guess I needed my eyes tested again....and you will guess right again, I need new glasses. If my eyes keep deteriorating at this rate I will be keeping the optician in the standard of living he likes to be kept in.

Luckily they are dirt cheap here, would cost 3 times as much in New Zealand, so thanks for small mercies.

Wow! wonder if I will look like her when I collect them tomorrow.

One can but dream..............

Mohammeds Birthday

Thursday was Mohammed's birthday, God bless him, as it gave us a 3 day weekend.

The other good thing is that it being Easter in the Christian world, it means that most every where else it is a holiday on Friday being Good Friday ( we had our hotcross buns) then Easter Sunday and of course Easter Monday,

so if you add all this together it gives us a 5 day break, as work outside of UAE is stopped until Tuesday.

I guess we have an advantage over a lot of countries we can guarantee our weather. So we can plan our activities with out the fear of them being washed out.

So Happy Bithday Mohammed.

Hatta Fort Hotel

The 4 star Hatta Fort Hotel is an exclusive Mountain Retreat offering the ultimate in relaxation and seclusion from the city’s hustle and bustle. Set in 80 acres of manicured gardens, surrounded by the majestic Hajar Mountain range

3 car loads of us went to Hatta on Friday where they do a buffet lunch and use of the pool, we had a great time.

The buffet was good and varied, and the kids enjoyed the pool, there was a covered area so we didn't have to sit in he blistering sun all afternoon.

This type of offer seems to be the norm lately I have been told, so we will go again.

 

When will they learn

Yesterday Abu Dhabi / Dubai saw the worst multi- car accident in their history

Abu Dhabi is an hour away from Dubai so many people work in one Emirate but live in another so need to travel each day along the motorway.

It was on the motor way between Abu Dhabi and Dubai heading towards Dubai.

120 cars in one pile up, 17 dead and 76 people seriously injured countless others injured and the death toll is expected to rise over the next few hours.

All caused by 2 speeding cars in fog so thick there was almost nil visibility.

To top it all, as well, in the opposite direction another 20 car pile up happened also caused by speed.

When will they learn that a car is not a camel and it will not go around things if it comes to an obstacle.

Speed kills, seems to be a misnomer here, it will not happen to me, seems to be the attitude of the young Arab drivers.

It is nothing for these people to have thousands of dollars outstanding in speeding fines...why won't the authorities wake up and see what is going on.

The driving schools here are run by a leading family and students are taught by people of the same mind as the ones they are teaching, I am not infallible, or indestructible seems to be what they learn.

We see the instructors driving their cars around the city and they drive in the same way, so what does this teach the young drivers

A person or two dies every day here in Dubai in a car smash or more if a bus is involved also countless serious injuries occur daily in bangs between cars...the road toll is so great that garages and bodyshops have 6 months of cars waiting for repairs...one thing I will not miss when we return to New Zealand is the road carnage here.

This also made the world new this morning so may be you have already seen the pictures where you live.

This week in Dubai, Riyadh and Bahrain

This week we have been travelling.....

Eric to Riyadh in Saudi for a few days working and myself to Bahrain on what we call a "Visa Run"

This means when you enter Dubai they give you 60 days to stay .... if you do not have a residence visa you have to leave and come back in again. I had been in the allotted time so had to leave .... Bahrian was the ideal place to go......was great to go and stay with a couple of girls I made friends with during our time there.

JODY

Verna and Jody, it was both their birthdays while I was there and we seemed to eat copious amounts of birthday cake, we went along to the American Womens Assoc. craft group , which I also attended back in my time there, met up with the ladies nice to hear all their news. I left a few ideas for crafts for them to do, ready for their April Craft Fair.

VERNA

There is no Quilting group in Bahrain and two of the girls Valerie and Judy are starting one which gets off the ground this coming Sunday morning with eight new quilters... Good luck ladies you will enjoy it.

Jody lives in a complex that is so cute, now you say how can "Cute"be a word to discrible a complex, well the central swimming pool area and surroundings look like Disney Land all the area is covered in cute ducks and animals with water spouting mushrooms, I am not sure this photo shows every thing as it was but nice picture anyway.

Eric had a good time in Riyadh, drinking coffee of course as no beer etc allowed. Although he was taken to a club where ladies are free to dress as they wish and mix with other men, he found this quite amazing of course.

Now we are both home and it is very pleasant at this time in Dubai 25 / 30 degrees by day and cools off by night time which is nice for sleeping with no AC having to be on.

Today we are on a Beer Run.... we have to drive to a place 3/4 hour from here to buy 20 cases of beer for the Hash, an odd thing to do you may say, but it is so much cheaper at "Baracuda" where we have to go, than here in Dubai.

 

Great News

Last evening we received the news that Steve had proposed to Kathryn....she said yes,
No photo with out the children so Ben has to be in the act

So we have another wedding in the family ......could be April or September, they still have to finalise the date.

They will get married in Hamilton NZ, where they live, not far away from their home is the most beautiful gardens.

Called Yeah! you guessed "Hamilton Gardens" which is one of those delightful and enormous public parks and arboretums that astound you when you visit in every season.

I believe she wants to use the greenhouse for the ceremony so here is a couple of lovely

pictures of it.