The Carr Family: January 2008

Quick photo update

Nothing too exciting to report from Dubai this week. The weather is back to normal and US presidents have stayed away, so it's been life as usual pretty much (although who is going to come out tops on "Super Tuesday" next week out of the Democratic hopefuls is holding everyone's attention in the house - Hillary, you go girl!)
The boys are back in routine after the Christmas hols. Josh is at nursery school three mornings a week and thoroughly enjoying it, which is great. Dan is very close to taking his first steps, so exciting times ahead in his life too!

The boys wear their new shirts with pride!

Josh and his pal Jay, sharing the bike

All smiles at dinner time... my little grazer!

Feeding the "Billy Goat Guff"

It's raining, it's pouring...

We've been living in the UAE since the end of August last year, and were honestly astounded to wake up on Sunday morning and see that the sky wasn't blue and the sun wasn't shining... No, instead we had UK-type grey skies and that imminent feeling that rain was coming - it didn't disappoint. It has been pouring for the past two days now (and George W. Bush paid us a visit yesterday - well not us personally, thank heavens! Quite a week!)
Well, what an experience... There is water EVERYWHERE. As you can see, our garden is completely waterlogged and there is just nowhere for the water to go, as Dubai is ill-equipped to deal with this kind of problem, seeing as rain is pretty scarce on the whole. We woke up this morning to find the playroom upstairs under a few inches of water ( I sensed something was wrong when Josh walked to the bathroom for his morning pee and ended up sliding on his bum down the passage!) It's been quite a morning getting all the water out - the drain on our balcony was blocked so the only place for the water out there to go was IN! Fun!
As for driving, well "hazardous" and "treacherous" are two words that come to mind. I went to fetch Josh from school earlier, normally a 15-minute journey, and arrived there an hour later. People have no clue how to drive in rain, and besides, the roads are like rivers. For the first time I felt like I really could justify driving around in my fuel-guzzling 4x4, as "regular" cars were getting carried away by the water! (Well, aside from the times ramping up onto the pavement is handy when there is nowhere else to park!!)

It's been quite an eventful day all round. Just hope it stops raining soon. Come back searing heat and humidity - I miss you!!!

Some quick extras...

A photo of old Dubai (Deira) taken from our ride on an Abbra cadabra (similar to the one in the forground).

Josh exercising along the river with his rattle (?).

Kimbo and Dan amongst the bananas at the Thursday market, but on a Friday (or the other way around).

Air conditioning is big business here in Dubai. Even this guards "office" (all 2 ft by 7ft of it) is equipped with the most advanced cooling system available to man... Dubai has the worst carbon footprint on earth but the alternative is too bad to contemplate...

Peter is our new coach and Arsenal slip to 2nd in the Premiership. Things look bleak... Have a good week.

Holiday News

We had a wonderful two weeks over Christmas having my Mom and stepdad, Des, visit us from SA. It was such fun showing them the sights of the UAE, and seeing a lot of new sights ourselves in the process! Here they are adding the finishing touches to our delicious dinner on Christmas Eve... nothing quite like Mom's cooking at Christmas, no matter how old you are :)

Christmas Eve dinner in our garden.

A bit different from the Eastern Cape's stray cows and

goats!

We had a couple of lovely days on the beach. The weather didn't disappoint; despite being winter here we still had days of mid-20's temps and the sea water felt more like the sea than the bath! Josh and Grampa Des making sandcastles... if you can spot stray fins in the background it's probably Mommy or Daddy who were snorkelling out to the rock at the time :)