Where is everybody????

I got an odd phone call the other week from my mother.
“Hi James, how are you? Are you up to anything this weekend?”
This was not general chit chat, but a leading question which kind of threw me. So I said nothing planned and double checked with Becky before asking “Why???”
“Oh, we thought we might pop over to see you all for a few days……”

This would not normally be a strange statement for parents to make, but when they live nearly six thousand kilometers away it makes you stop and think.
So this conversation was on the Sunday night and the following Tuesday night I met them in the arrivals hall of Seeb international airport, all I might add thanks to airmiles points!
Wow, what a lovely and unexpected surprise, we hadn’t seen them since last Christmas and our boys have been growing up fast.
No big trips were on the cards, as they were here to wind down from the stresses of life in the UK and problems with a house conversion, but at least they were able to spend quality time with Jacob and Oscar.

One trip out was for adults only….dinner at the Edge. This is a beautifully placed ‘restaurant’ at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Qurum, not really a restaurant but rather a small collection of tables and chairs perched on the edge of the cliff. The menu is limited, maybe simple, delicious none the less and the ambience and views are second to none. Sitting there at night you are treated to the uninterrupted view of the coast and city all the way from Qurum to Seeb, spectacular!!



We all went out to the park one morning so that Jacob could show “NuNu” and “Grumps” how well he was getting on with learning to ride his bicycle. He was so excited prior to getting on the bike that it came as a shock when he had a complete meltdown, with floods of tears, declaring he couldn’t do it!!!! Both Becky and myself pushed him hard, out of frustration, and he did actually achieve what he originally set out to do, with the promise of an ice-cream at the end of it.
The following day all was made clear, when we found out that he had an ear infection, oops! Queue two guilty parents!!!
So with Jacob on a weeks course of anti-biotics, Oscar with a temperature and a cold and, me recovering from a sinus infection, my parents had walked into an epidemic!

This is the time of year for being ill, it must have something to do with the temperature change, but as soon as you switch off the AC’s the nasty bugs seem to strike. So with all of us being ill at one time or other over the last few weeks we managed to miss the Melbourne Cup and several other social invites that had us feeling we were all alone. We even managed to miss the National(Renaisance)Day fireworks at Bausher Stadium, given that we normally feel the effects inside the house, it was with some surprise when we realised they had somehow completely passed us by!

To remedy this we had friends over for dinner last weekend and a trip to Qurum park the following day, but this coming weekend is the Dubai Rugby 7’s, and with a lot of our friends going to that I think it might be another lonely weekend.