New Year's Eve - Gangsta's Paradise !

Last night I saw in the new year at a party held in a huge villa here in Abu Dhabi. It was an awesome venue , which included a bar (with a barman), a pool room, outside space with a swimming pool area - with music provided by a DJ. The guys who share the villa play in a band, which also performed at stages through the night (a rogue trumpet player was seen towards the end of the night too! ;-) ). We had good company, good food and enjoyed a great night welcoming in 2014.

 The venue

American occupants as you may guess

The awesome bar!

Pool area

Other pool area!

 ...and the band played on...

New Year's Eve - Abu Dhabi

Well, we saw in the new year with a bunch of good friends at The Club, Abu Dhabi. The Club put on a great do, we had a good spread and good music - from the 4 Tops (well, actually the 1 Top , plus three impostors!). We celebrated the UAE new year at midnight (complete with obligatory fireworks), followed by celebrating the UK new year at 4am! By then a full cooked breakfast was available (with pork!) - awesome!

Fantastic buffet, with carvery, BBQ and loads of other dishes.

Dance troupe performing on the stage.

Catering by John Bobbitt?

Good friends, good times...

...and elsewhere in Abu Dhabi, this was going on

(Image Credit: Hadrian Hernandez/Gulf News)

A few more photos from Qasr Al Sarab

Sunset at Qasr Al Sarab

I made the trek to the top of the large dune next to the resort (c.200ft tall) to watch the sun go down. It is pretty spectacular up there, with nothing but sand dunes to be seen for as far as the eye can see.

...with apologies to Lawrence...

1-1-11

Ohh err, spooky date!

It is the second anniversary of me writing this blog. So much has happened in this time it is really quite unbelievable. We are in our fourth home, Caroline has starting her own work venture and we have visited some amazing places. Here's to another eventful year!

Just so nobody bothers asking - no, we had a crap new year's eve!

We had already decided to have a quiet night in, but Caz wasn't feeling great and I had a fever with a chesty cough. We were tucked up in bed watching a film Caz wanted to watch by 10.30pm - a lovely cheery story with Julie Walters going through an assisted suicide. Great way to see the new year in!

We decided to pull ourselves out of bed to go and see the fireworks on Yas Island from our balcony at midnight. We couldn't see them. We could hear them though. So as midnight came we just, well, listened to the fireworks, then went back to bed to watch the final moments of Julie Walters' life.........

Today was a better day though, well what we saw of it. I think we finally surfaced just after 1pm. We went to the Abu Dhabi World Tennis Championship and watched Rafa Nadal beat Roger Federer 7-6 7-6 in the final. A very civilized way to pass the afternoon of new year's day.

I commented to Caz on the way back that we are fortunate that Abu Dhabi does manage to attract world class sports and other entertainment, the venues for which are mostly less than 15 mins from our house - Yas (F1, Concerts), Zayed Sport City (Tennis, Concerts), Abu Dhabi Golf Club (European Tour Championship in a couple of weeks time). If we wanted to go and see these sort of events at home, they would normally be quite a trek.

Best news of the day though.... Watford vs. Portsmouth live on Al Jazira Sports tonight! Yes, get in there! So I am off to watch my team live from Watford, in Abu Dhabi - doesn't get any better!

Anniversary Blog!

Well a whole year has passed since I started this blog! How the time has flown by! Last night we celebrated bringing in the new year with dinner at Mezzeluna restaurant at Emirates Palace. The meal was a bit fussy with one course even I couldn't eat (Risotto with black Perigord truffle and asparagus - yuk!), but the main course steak was lovely. We got to see the fireworks at midnight by the beach .. see below....

We were issued with NYE hats and tiaras, which of course I duly wore all the way home (hat, not tiara!).

I thought the tiara looked good on Budda at home!

When we got it I was able to Skype with my family who were altogether at my brother's house, although of course they had not reached new year at that point.

This year has been full of many ups and downs with I guess a couple of major turning points which have made it bearable staying put. Firstly was out move from Mohammed bin Zayed City into Abu Dhabi city centre. This was definitely the right thing to do and has made life so much easier, especially for Caz who can walk to work in 10 minutes from where we live.

The second thing was Caz's change of role at work. For the last number of years at home Caz had been working specialist roles working 9-5. When we got here that all changed and she was back to days/nights and weekends. With me working all the hours under the sun it was grim. Then she was asked to take on a clinic role working Sunday to Thursday 7.30-17.00, with no weekends. This has meant we have had all our weekends free, which has been so much better.

With the job market at home no better, it is looking very much like we will be staying put for another year. If it wasn't for a friends and family, we wouldn't mind at all really - but we do miss them all. We will again just have to make the most of the time we do get with them.

Here's to a good 2010!

New year, new blog!

Well, I thought I'd give this blogging thing a go! Let's see how I get on.

Caz and I have now been in Abu Dhabi for 6 months, give or take a couple of weeks - and what a weird 6 months! Neither of us has lived abroad before, but I think even if we had it would still seem weird! We are definitely getting used to it, but it has taken some adjustment to deal with life in the Middle East.

This is where we live - we have the ground floor. It's on a development called Mohammed bin Zayed City about 40 mins out of the City Centre. It's quite roomy and provides parking, which is like gold dust in the City. As I have to travel to Dubai regularly it also cuts down the journey time to get there. I work for a Global IT Infrastructure distribution company based in Dubai and Caroline works at a maternity hospital in Abu Dhabi. I guess you will get more of a flavour of our work as these posts continue, but for now I want to talk about this week.

We have had all our kids over from the UK this week which has been great. Christmas Day was a bit of an anti-climax as we both had to work, but we did get chance to "Skype" with my family in the evening which was good. Basically, we saved our Christmas festivities until our kids arrived on the 28th. So a full crimble dinner was a must and we swapped pressies.

A couple of days ago we paid a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately we got there past the time for visitors so we could only look at the outside. Caz and I will definitely go back though to take a look inside.

For New Year's Eve we booked to go on a Desert Safari. We were picked up by our driver and host, Amir who expertly guided us though the desert in his 4x4. The crazy dune bashing was fantastic - the hysterical laughs of terror from the kids were pretty funny! We stopped by some camel farms and watched the sun go down on top of the dunes - very nice, awwww.

We arrived at Bedouin camp where we had Arabic coffee, dates, tea, kebabs and rice. As Amir is a regular host he let us smuggle in our own drinks for the night (!), so a good time was had by all. The girls had henna tattoos which looked really lovely. They even bought some of their own henna today and did some more themselves.

So on the strike of midnight we cracked open the Champagne, but unfortunately as a heavy fog had descended, there were no fireworks. All in all, a great day.

Good job we hadn't booked anything in Dubai as all outdoor events (fireworks, concerts etc) were cancelled by order of Sheikh Mohammed as a mark of respect to the people of Gaza during the current conflict with Israel. I guess the rockets fired into Israel by Hamas over the last couple of weeks, unilaterally breaking the ceasefire, don't count! Anyway... quite a few upset people in Dubai I would imagine.

Today was a little more subdued. Lee was not feeling too great (too many Fosters me thinks!), but the rest of us went to Al Raha Beach Hotel for brunch. International buffets are great! I had salad, sushi, fresh crab, smoked salmon, lobster, beef, roast pots, all manner of puddings, fruits and cheeses! Finished off with coffee. Yummy! ....yes I know, I am a pig!

Tomorrow I think we may be off to the beach......