Tuesday, September 9, 2008

School Daze

Sunday 7th September was Jody's first day of school. And Rachel's first day of driving to school. Jody was excited. Rachel was terrified.

Jody loves her new uniform - a cotton tartan dress, sensible shoes, white socks and a fetching blue hat that makes her look like she is going to join the foreign legion rather than year one.


The journey may have seemed to start badly, with an empty petrol tank, but it allowed us to experience the joy that is the Dubai petrol station. Firstly a nice man fills your car up for you, so you don't even have to get out. And then he only charges you 72 dirhams (just under £10) to completely fill the tank of a 4x4.

Jody's teacher was Miss White. To go with her socks. She liked school so much she decided to go back the next day.
And Dylan had his 'induction' at the nursery.

Dylan's teacher was Miss Gray. Sock distribution is going to be very easy.

The nursery classes have different names connected to undersea creatures. Lovely things like sea horses, starfish and dolphins. It came as no surprise to find out which class Dylan was in.
After Dylan's induction finished, Mark needed to take his car to work, so Rachel, Amy and Dylan called a taxi for 10.15.
We waited. The taxi didn't came. We waited some more. The taxi still didn't come.

Rachel called the taxi company who explained that the taxi driver had come, had called and had left when he got no answer. Rachel checked her mobile phone and found that the taxi driver had indeed rung. At 10.02. He had left before he was supposed to have arrived. Very Doctor Who.

The taxi company said they would order a non-time-travelling taxi. Forty five minutes later, no taxi. The taxi company explained that no drivers wanted to come out to Nad Al Shiba to get us.

This was understandable given that Nad Al Shiba is such a new area that it is spelt differently on all the road signs. In the first 100m after leaving our house are three signs labelled 'Nad Al Shiba', 'Nadd Al Shiba' and 'Nad Al Sheba'. The school is in the middle of the desert with nothing for miles (for those of you who have seen 'Holes', think Camp Green Lake).
Rachel did angry: no taxis came. Rachel did desperate: no taxis came. Rachel did terribly sad and very worried about small boys melting in the desert: no taxis came.

Rachel asked a local man standing in the car park to order a taxi. A taxi came.

By the time we got home, it was time for Rachel to drive back to school to pick up Jody. Still, it would soon be time to fill up the tank again.

3 comments:

Debbie said...

The blogging's brill I am most impressed! I enjoy it as much as Anna Pickard on the guardian website and she's v funny so well done :)
No sign of deserts here, most of the country's flooded.
I'll show mum how to find you when I next go home. Keep up the good work!
xx

Sam Burnett said...

Rach you are hilarious!
keep writing - I will definetly make time to read your blog. v v v good

xxx

Jack said...

This is my new favourite website.

Well done with all the petrol and the socks and that. It all sounds very complicated.

Love to all

Jack x