Bikes

A year or so ago we all had bikes, the cost of shipping them was greater than the cost of buying new ones. This was my rationale for leaving pretty much everything we owned in England.
TV it'll cost more to ship it,
books- really heavy will we really read them again, lets get some new ones
slow cooker it's ten years old and the handle has fallen off- we'll get a new one.
That was how we ended up starting from scratch in a new country, what I didn't really think through was that if I couldn't afford to ship it, I also could not afford to just replace everything on day one.

All that to say one year after arriving I finally replaced the kids bikes. We are going to try and use them as much as possible in the next three months or so before it gets too hot.
How to go for a bike ride in the UAE;
First take two SUV's and load bikes into back. No way will five bikes fit in one.-we have tried.
Drive to park, unload bikes and cycle until midday. Load up bikes into cars and drive home.
Here is TJ riding his bike without stabilisers for the first time.

Christmas in the sun

I am doing totally rubbish at my Christmas planning. Truth be told I was pretty horrendous at doing Christmas in England where I wish it could be Christmas everyday was playing from about September and trees and decorations were for sale as soon as the Easter bunny had hopped off. But here without the daily reminders that the season is approaching the weather a very pleasant 2osomething degrees I have done nothing to get ready. This is particularly bad as I am sure international posting dates have now long passed and so none of my friends and family will be receiving gifts or cards.
Not that they ever got cards when we lived in England mind you; but now that I am far from their presence and cannot gift them with my delightful company I feel slightly bad about it. If I didn't send a card I could give a hug and a hearty Merry Christmas to all I met.
I now realise they probably would rather have had a card. Even if I just wrote from Gillian on it with no message. I may send something electronic if I can work that out.

We do have a tree up; a very scrawny looking artificial tree from Lulu which the kids were allowed to choose a set of decorations each to adorn it with. So it is a scrawny unco-ordinated tree with flashing blue lights. I actually love it- there is something a bit 1970's naff about it which appeals to me. I almost bought a white one for that truly nostalgic feeling. I remember my cousins having a white tree when I was a kid and I always thought it was lovely.

I am also baking some Christmas biscuits next week with Lexy for a Christmas bake sale at school. The kids have a festive concert at school next week so I should feel more in the Christmas mood then and I can dash out to Bawadi mall and get them all a few presents. Hopefully Santa will find us but it is a bit doubtful. I seem to remember one of the reasons given for how he manages to get round the whole world in one night is that he doesn't visit Muslim countries because they don't believe in him there. Do you think if we get one of those Santa stop here signs he will see it on his way to Europe?

I'm trying to come up with some more ideas to get the festive feeling flowing. We could always go to the cinema to see Scrooge although I'm a bit dickensed out with Great Expectations. We could have a card making evening and the kids could make cards to send to their friends. We could go to the carol singing evening at the Rugby Club. I could get some spices and try turning that bottle of Argentinian wine into a mulled beverage. It all still feels like we're faking Christmas as it doesn't really happen here. I'll start a piggy bank for a trip home next December and wrap it in tinsel.

getting arty again

In England we had a fabulous big consevatory that the kids had named their art room. It was well stocked for any art and craft project and we used it all year round. Since moving here with nothing but our two suitcases each, it has been a slow process to set up home and get used to living and working here. When your starting your life over from scratch stocking up on paints and hama beads and sculpey clay all take a back seat to kettles and knives and bedlinen and towels. The kids brought some toys with them and we tried to buy a few little extras. All the toys we bought broke or were really expensive. Even finding somewhere to buy something was pretty tricky as toys r us hadn't opened here yet and the supermarkets toys were really shoddy quality. I did buy though a very nice set of watercolour paints and they were well used.

Now we are more settled I want to stock up on more art and crafty things. When Clo was off "sick" last week we did art on the patio every morning. Lexy is also doing a correspondance art course. I would post some pictures of our artistic efforts but I need to go out at some point this morning and posting one set of pictures a day is all I have patience for. We were looking at abstract art and we all tried out different styles. I say we as I had to have a go too.

I'm thinking of doing a kind of art evening once a week after school, so the schoolies don't miss out on all the fun. Lexy will enjoy helping me set that up. Last year we set up a theme night on thursdays after school a few times and she loved organising that and coming up with ideas for things to do for pirate night or hawaiian luau night. Now to find places that sell good stuff to do craft with.

Our Garden

K worked like crazy digging holes in the concrete filled sandy patch that was our garden and by lunchtime it really was a garden with trees and soil. Ok. It doesn't look like much but compared to the bare ground it is the most wonderful thing. The Area behind the table and chairs needs fixing next. I won't tell you about K and his crazy plan for a climbing wall up the side of the house. The breeze block doorway is actually a part of the new property. When we moved in it was a lovely semi detached villa but now we are mid terraced as the owner has added on a couple of small apartments to the other side of us. We still think we might lay claim to the patch of land in front of the other house as it is only accesible from our property. We might put some grass there. All in all it is starting to get a bit more of a home here. The only downside to sitting out in the yard is that the road next to our house is as busy as a motorway and huge cars with big engines screech up and down it all evening. Considering it is a residential back road I do not get why it is quite so busy but there you go.