Week 40 - My Sunday Photo and 1000th Blog Post

Today marks my 1000th blog post, which I started in October 2009, my first post was all about 'My week as a Dalek' and has gone on to describe family life as expats living in Africa and Asia and travel to Northern America and Europe.

I wanted something special to photograph today, something that sums up my blog and my life, something that describes my life 6 years on. My week is just as busy but with no kids at home or a job to go to. In many ways not much has changed, I still do daft things as my husband will vouch for.

This week I've been trying to book my flight to South Africa, I have very flexible dates and no preference of which airline I travel with. I have enough Avios with British Airways for the trip, but as BA don't fly directly from Dubai to Johannesburg, I have to fly via Heathrow making it a journey of 19 hours.

The whole purpose of my trip is to work with a couple of charities I was involved with in the 4 years I lived there and of course to catch up with some very dear friends. I've been trying to raise funds to support my charity work, but not my actual personal expenses. I have money saved up to spend in addition to my flight, accommodation, car hire and food, for various equipment and gifts for the places I will be visiting so the cheaper I can get my flight, the more spare cash I will have.

I'm struggling to understand how Emirates can charge me £587 If fly from Heathrow to Johannesburg and back again with the plane stopping over in Dubai. But if I travel from Dubai, getting on the same plane that has come in from Heathrow my flight would cost me £718. 

With other airlines I would have to fly the following return journey.

 Dubai - Seychelles - Johannesburg - Johannesburg - Abu Dhabi - Mumbai - Dubai

It's only 90 minutes by road from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, I would not be able to get off the plane in Abu Dhabi and my case wouldn't be returned to me, due to air regulations for travel.

I gave up trying to book my flight and tackled the house work instead, which took me most of the morning after the cat and dog ran through an open door straight over my still wet mopped lounge, hall, corridor and dining room.....grrrrrrrr.

Suffering with cabin fever and the air con drying out my skin and being extremely noisy, I walked to our local Starbucks and received a very interesting telephone call, which I'll tell you about later this week and one email with a request for more paid writing work.

I like My Sunday Photo to reflect the week I've had or the week ahead, but this today has caused me some confusion, the flights and the phone call. The flights I can work out the phone call will require a lot of thought, starting with do I stay with what I know, where I've finally become comfortable? do I take the plunge into something new? or do I return to what I do best?

Summing up my confusion. Nope, it's not an Ostrich.

Week 34 - My Sunday Photo

Drinking coffee with a view of the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai skyline in Starbucks. 

Can't wait now till winter when I can sit outside and enjoy the view rather than looking through a piece of tinted glass sat under the air conditioning. 

Week 4 One Daily Positive FMSPHOTOADAY SnapHappyBritMums Project365

It's week 4 and we are still living in a hotel, it's not been a good week for us, although on Thursday Hubbies residency visa was stamped, but due to the death of the King Of Saudi, The UAE has declared 3 days of mourning, so we can't make the application to customs now till Monday. Out of respect the TV and Radio stations are not broadcasting their normal programmes.

Child 4 of 5 returned to the UK on Thursday ready to start his new and own life with the British Army. We had planned to be in the house by now, unfortunately due to the visa delay it has meant that our son didn't have the opportunity to stay in the house with us as a family in our new home. It will be over a year before he gets the opportunity to come back out here and probably the same length of time before we see him again.

This is turning out to be a fantastic project for me and really keeping me motivated. I'm looking for the positive in every day and creating opportunities to combine the two photo prompts.

Day 18
#onedailypositive #ThisIs #FMSPHOTOADAY #Splash #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

Yeah, good news, residency visa will be ready tomorrow then we can apply for customs to release our furniture and fingers crossed, this time next week we shall be in our new home. Todays photo is 'This is our new cooker and other bits and bobs that we've splashed out on for our new home'

Day 19
#onedailypositive #Homemade #FMSPHOTOADAY #WOW #SnapHappyBritMums

It's 9.20pm here in Dubai and I'm ready for bed having decided I can't be arsed with my One daily Positive and despite there being many wow factors to the day with the storm that blew a tree down in our garden and the localised flooding and snow in Abu Dhabi. But there is nothing handmade and that depressed me......yeah all our worldy goods are with customs in Jebal Ali and we've been living out of suitcases in hotels since December 12th all negativity.
So I decided I'll give #FMSPhotoADay a miss today and just go with WOW and my one daily positive is that it was cooler today.

Day 20
#onedailypositive #Window #FMSPHOTOADAY #ThisIsMe #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

Moving to Dubai was my Window of opportunity to reinvent myself, my life, my clothes, my ambitions, finish my degree and return to work. I'm already applying for jobs, making contacts and networking and have a few voluntary roles lined up to get my foot back in the door. I need to explore the options of finish my psychology degree as I can't complete it with The OU as originally planned. I'm most comfortable with untamed hair, a bit of make up, a large bag, birkenstocks, jeans and a black t shirt, it is my uniform, my comfort zone. I don't do groomed, I don't feel comfortable in heels and a dress (although I can do it) it just isn't me. So I've decided over the past few weeks, since living in a hotel that #ThisIsMe dark circles under my eyes and a muffin top and just to except that this is how I am.

Day 21
#onedailypositive #InARow #FMSPHOTOADAY #KeepingWarm #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

My pashminas bought in South Africa ready for moving to Dubai, so far I've not been required to cover my head or shoulders as I intended them to be used for, but instead used them to sit on at the beach and cover up in the evenings when it gets a bit chilly. I'm grateful I have more freedom than I anticipated

Day 22
#onedailypositive #Collection #FMSPHOTOADAY #Word #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

Dubai Airport is my new collection point for family and friends, unfortunately I'm here today to say GOODBYE to child 4 of 5, who turns 20 tomorrow, who joins The British Army on March 1st and it's likely to be another 12 months till I see him again. My One Daily Positive is how proud I am of all our children and how happy it makes me to see them leave home and succeed.

Day 23
#onedailypositive #SomethingFarAway #FMSPHOTOADAY #Food #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

Today is not a good day, it's my son's 20th Birthday and he flew back to the UK yesterday so I guess he's what is far away along with the rest of our children and all our family and friends. But keeping inline with taking a positive out of everyday and incorporating food, I've opted to post a picture of my favourite tea, that for the past 4 years in South Africa have been traded like gold dust. Here in Dubai I can buy most things, from most countries, some of it is very expensive as it's imported other stuff is made under licence here.

Day 24
#onedailypositive #PlayTime #FMSPHOTOADAY #BurnsNight #SnapHappyBritMums #Project365

Day 24 #onedailypositive #playtime #fmsphotoaday #burnsnight #snaphappybritmums #project365 My family on a daily basis now consists of hubby and I plus a dog and a cat and we can still have family fun on the beach without kids to entertain us. Finding a reference to Burns night was a bit more challenging until hubby asked why my bottled water bought in Starbucks is imported from Scotland? #BurjAlArab

New Year's Eve in Dubai

Well it won't be at the Burg Khalifia, or the Madinet, or the Burg Al Arab, or The Beach or Dubai Marina, it will be from our hotel, assuming we haven't fallen asleep by then.

Our 19 year old is spending the night on the beach with a school friend from South Africa who also lives in Dubai.

So far for New Years Eve we've checked out of one hotel and into another, walked the dog and fed the cat.

We are currently sitting in Starbucks sending emails to HR, the rental agent, the landlord and the relocation company who to date have helped us find a house, made all the bookings with the shipping and air freight, our personal flights, booked hotels and made the arrangements to have the dog and cat flown over. However, we don't have a house yet that is habitable and after tomorrow the 19 year old doesn't have anywhere to stay for 4 nights until his friends visitors return to South Africa. We can't afford to pay for an additional room at the hotel as we've had to pay for most of the above and until we get residency visas we can't have a bank account and therefore the company can't reimburse our costs.

Off now to a supermarket to buy cleaning material and camping gear so we can spend the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow making one bathroom and bedroom useable, however the kitchen in it's current state is a write off.

Not how we had been promised we'd spend our new lives in Dubai, but hey ho, it's a company move.

Happy New Year to you all and I hope your New Year is a lot less stressful than ours.

UPDATE

Well we ended up at The Beach after a meal at the Marina and it was amazing, peaceful, friendly and calm, no alcohol drunk so no worries about any violence or trouble. When everyone left it reminded me of leaving a big football match but without the worry of anything kicking off.

My Sunday Photo - In search of coffee

I've spent so long in South Africa that I'm so used to how coffee should taste, that I'm struggling to find one to my taste in the UK. Even the tea tastes strange.