Abu Dhabi

 

Before I move on to all things Christmassy, here are some photos from our weekend in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where we stopped on our way back to England for Christmas.  It was so nice to get some winter sunshine!  It was 30 degrees and just what we needed after a hard 18 week-long term at school.

 

We'd never been to the UAE before, so weren't quite sure what to expect.  We both really liked it, although it did get a bit tiresome every time we both said hello to someone, the reply would be 'hello, sir'.  Otherwise, it seemed like a very chilled out, relaxed, laid back and friendly kind of place.

 

Our hotel was on Yas Island, which is where most of the tourist hotels are. as well as the theme parks and the formula 1 circuit, which we could see from our hotel window.

 

We landed at 6am, but were able to have a leisurely breakfast in the hotel and then get straight into our room at 7 - now that's good service!  The first thing we did was go for a walk to see the F1 circuit, which was having a 12 hour GT endurance race, which we could watch from the viewing platforms around the track.  It was awesome to see the cars whizzing around and we got a real feel for what the F1 race must be like there.

 

After a couple of hours relaxing by the hotel pool, and the delicious lunch buffet, we were picked up at 3pm in a 4x4 and headed out into the desert for a private dune safari.  The desert is so amazing! We'd never seen anything like it.  I was shaking sand out of my shoes for several days afterwards!  We had some photos taken while our driver let some air out of the tires and then we drove very quickly up and down and all over the very high sand dunes.  I did not like it. At all!  It made me feel very travel sick.  And the more I squealed as we went down near vertical dunes, the more the driver laughed and did it again!

 

I was very glad when we stopped to watch the sun set!

 

After our desert safari we were taken to a camp, where we could ride camels, get henna tattoos, hold a falcon, try Arabic coffee, try sandboarding and get all the soft drinks we wanted.  There was a buffet and a show with a man in a big skirt who span around in circles for 10 minutes. His skirt even lit up like a UFO! I don't know how he didn't get dizzy!  There was also a belly dancer.

 

On Sunday, we went to Ferrari World, which has the world's fastest roller coaster.  The roller coaster is totally awesome!  There's a photo of what our hair looked like it after going on it. It's so fast!!!  There weren't many people at the theme park at all, so we enjoyed ourselves going on various rides and not having to queue for more than 10 minutes for anything.  There were classic ferarris all over the place, and some F1 cars, and mock ups of the pit lane wall, which were fun to pose with.

 

In the evening we met up with Stacey and her 3 daughters, who lived in Abu Dhabi for a long time, and are now in Dubai, which is an hours drive.  We realised that we haven't seen each other for 7 years!  It was so nice to see her though, like nothing had changed at all!

 

On Monday morning, before out lunch time flight, we headed to the Grand Mosque, which you don't have to pay to get into, you just have to book a time slot so that they can make sure they have enough clothing for the women. As you can see in the photos, I had to be completely covered apart from my face.  I didn't mind at all.  The mosque was absolutely stunning, and as we were there at 9am when it opened, it was very quiet.  The floor is completely mosaic and the columns and symmetry of the arched doorways are a photographers dream.  i'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Christmas Market

It's really been a most unpleasant week.  Shingles rhymes with jingles, but it's neither Christmassy or fun. :-(  In fact, it's been very painful and so i've been feeling pretty miserable all week.  I did leave the house most days, even if it was just to go to the supermarket, or to sit in the coffee shop with my Kindle reading Harry Potter.  Kindle unlimited have a free 3 month trail on at the moment, and i'm making the most of it by reading everything I can find!

I did meet Becky for lunch in Starbucks one day, which was nice.  I've tried to keep myself busy, by sorting out clothes and drawers for when we move back to the UK, and organising my Christmas gifts, but I really did get bored by Friday.

On Friday evening we went to the Paulaner German Brewery's Christmas market, which was lovely.  Last year it was freezing cold and raining, but this year it was chilly and a clear night.  Perfect weather for a mulled wine and a nutella crepe.  We went with Andy and Becky, who are always great company, and we ran into several friends who were also enjoying the Christmas atmosphere.  I was just happy to be out of the house and talking to real people (as opposed to cats).    To be fair to them, the cats have looked after me well and been very loving and cuddly.

Matt had a busy week, having several appointments to get his arm looked at, which he did some nerve damage on ages ago.  He also had a senior school Christmas meal one evening, and was playing in two different football tournaments on Saturday (they won the tournament) and sunday (they came 2nd).  He went to the 12 pubs of Puxi pub crawl on Saturday after the football, and to dinner on Sunday after the football.  So, i've barely seen him all week!

I'm back at work now, which is nice.  My students missed me, which is even nicer.  Things are winding down for Christmas this term, which finishes on Friday with a half day.  Then we're off to Abu Dhabi for the weekend, yay!  I can't wait for some winter sunshine.

Thanksgiving

Last week was really nice!  Here are some lovely wintery/Christmassy photos of the kitties in their Christmas capes and their scarves.  So cute!

Thursday was thanksgiving, so we were out to the Kerry Centre to The Cook restaurant for their annual thanksgiving buffet.  It's the third year we've been there with our lovely  American friends and a group of year 5 teachers. It was such a nice evening spent with lovely people.

This is Matt's final Mo-vember photo with his lovely bushy moustache.  A big, bushy ginger moustache reminds me so much of Grandad - i've been thinking about him all month!

The week started going downhill on Friday, when I spent my day at work feeling some pain around the left side of my torso.  I went to the doctors on Saturday morning before my shift at the school's winter festival, and it turns out I've got Shingles.  You get it from being stressed and tired. Tick and tick. So it shouldn't really come as a surprise.  Anyway, it is very very painful as I now have pox all over my back and chest. It's manageable when i'm sitting watching TV, but at night, I can't lie on any side in a comfy way, so i'm just getting more tired, which is making the pox worse. Vicious circle!  So, I'm signed off work for the whole week because the kids can catch chicken pox from me.  I'm trying to keep myself distracted in the house, so today I had a big clear out of clothes and started filling a suitcase of things to bring back home for good at Christmas.  It's kind of scary thinking about moving back to the UK, but I can't wait.  I am so ready to be home.

Anyway, this is Snowball giving me some extra attention and giving me his 'look of love' yesterday. He's so cute.

These are some beautiful flowers that a friend gave me to say thank you for taking her family photos. They are ready to go on the website now, so i'll post some soon.

Traditional 'walrus' thanksgiving photo...

Christmas Decorations

This is a picture one of my students drew for me this week!

We started off with a very un-christmassy Friday at the Movember Quiz night, which Matt had organised.  I had a lovely team of 6 and we did really well.  If the quiz had just been based on the 7 rounds of quiz questions then we would have won by a long shot.  The trouble was that there were 3 races that we could wager our points on.  We bet very small, only one point on each race, but we ended up coming second overall, losing by 1 and a half points!  If we hadn't bet anything, we would have won!!!  Never mind.  Morally, we took the victory!  It was a fun night anyway, and Matt ended up going out afterwards to celebrate making over 400 pounds for the Movember charity.

Things got very Christmassy from there on  - except the weather, which remained a steady 20 degrees all weekend.  It's now back down to 11. No wonder so many people are sick!

We had the Concordia School Christmas fair on Saturday, which was fun.  Lots of stalls and some hotdogs and nachos thrown in.  We went with the team from Friday's Movember quiz.  It was good fun, but very warm inside the school.  This will be one of the best fairs this year, since our school has changed ours to be a teachers, kids and parents only event, with the students running all of the stalls, and us supervising for 30 minutes in Junior School, and 2 hours if you're in senior school!

Matt and I went to Jamaica blue for a sausage roll and hot chocolate lunch after the fair.  Then Matt headed to Adam's flat to watch West Ham for the evening, and I watched The Holiday - we've working our way through the Christmas movie list, but Matt didn't want to watch that one.  We had already watched Nativity on Wednesday.

Sunday, was the ultimate in lazy-Christmasness!  We started the day with chocolate and peanut butter bagels, with a glass of champagne and orange juice, and spent the day decorating the house in festive cheer, taking photos of the cats in the Christmas outfits (coming to the blog soon) and watching Christmas movies - we watched The Muppets Christmas Carol, Die Hard 1 and the Elf.  We listened to Christmas playlists while Matt made a Guinness roasted beef joint and veg, and Monday evening we're going to have bubble and squeak leftovers.  The perfect, snuggly-cat festive day.