Christmas, New Year and no computer.
The computer, which in this day and age is such an integral part of any household, died just after Christmas. To be fair it was a pretty old computer (what is the ratio- 1 computer year to 10 human years?) but a kind computer fundi friend took it and spent several hours of his well earned leave cleaning it off and fixing it up. It is now a pleasure to use but something has gone wrong with the internet connection. I hope Heidi can fix it because kind fundi friend is back at work so it will be very embarrassing to have to appeal to him again. So – who knows when this will go off.
Christmas in this Muslim country was not very much different from Christmas at home. Christmas Eve we sang carols at home and finished off with Heidi reading ‘The night before Christmas’ At a critical moment in that familiar old Christmas poem (verse?), Stephanie, aged five, interrupted with a serious comment – ‘they DO use a lot of adjectives…’ which rendered us all quite incapable of continuing – to Steph’s surprise – why were the grown-ups giggling so hysterically?
Christmas Day was quiet and lovely – Father Christmas was generous to a fault, the large St Andrew’s Church was packed, the ham was delicious (bought in a sealed off room at a local specially licensed supermarket). Our usual Christmas ice cream hit just the right spot and after such a totally exhausting day we were all ready for an early night!
In this family it never rains but it pours. Having celebrated Christmas, on Friday, enjoyed a boxing day desert picnic on Saturday we woke up to Davey's 8th birthday on Sunday. His official party will only be in the middle of January when friends are back from holiday so his choice for the actual day was: movie, Burger King and then ten pin bowling. We escaped the movie to enjoy a couple of hours exploring Marian Mall then were spectators at the bowling (which Davey won!)
Picture - see 8 year old with dead dinosaur cake.
New Years Eve we decided against joining a crowd of noisy ex-pats at the Golf Club and settled for another family evening – this time down at the Corniche –the Abu Dhabi waterfront. We paid 
to go onto a ‘family beach’ which has excellent facilities and tends to keep the riff-raff out. We arrived at about 8 and were surprised to find ourselves about the first people there. So we had free choice of where to sit and under which pagoda. It was another gentle relaxing evening and as midnight struck we were treated to a brilliant fireworks display across the water from Emirates Palace. Davey and Steph were far gone by that time but Alex was wide awake (having taken the precaution of a good sleep in the afternoon) and if fact he only got to bed at nearly 2am when we all decided that enough was enough.
to go onto a ‘family beach’ which has excellent facilities and tends to keep the riff-raff out. We arrived at about 8 and were surprised to find ourselves about the first people there. So we had free choice of where to sit and under which pagoda. It was another gentle relaxing evening and as midnight struck we were treated to a brilliant fireworks display across the water from Emirates Palace. Davey and Steph were far gone by that time but Alex was wide awake (having taken the precaution of a good sleep in the afternoon) and if fact he only got to bed at nearly 2am when we all decided that enough was enough. 
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