Hello and Goodbye the Hamiltons

Mr & Mrs Hamilton Sr. arrived for a visit.

Then their son disappeared off to Lebanon on a work trip.


Then their daughter-in-law received a huge pile of work with a very short deadline.


Rachel began to panic. Not so much because of the work, more because Mark usually does all the cooking and she didn't want to look utterly useless in front of her parents-in-law by serving up pasta with chopped tomatoes and tuna for 3 nights in a row.


But with age comes wisdom, and the original and best Mr & Mrs Hamilton made the marvellous suggestion that we should order out for dinner each night.


Also, Rachel had underestimated her mother-in-law's amazing capacity for shopping! Entertaining Ian & Maureen during the day required little more than a lift to one of Dubai's many malls. And then in the afternoons they entertained the kids by taking them to the park.



Could anyone have better in-laws?

When Mark came home, he decided to take his mum and dad on a trip to make up for being away. All that was left to decide was where to take them? The beautiful Indian Ocean resort of Fujeirah? Oman's strikingly rugged Hajar mountain range?


But being Irish through and through, Mark decided on Barracuda - essentially, an enormous, rubbish-strewn, off licence where you can buy alcohol cheaply without a license.

The perfect end to a perfect holiday!

Still at least they got to play "Hello! Magazine, At Home with the Hamiltons" at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi...

Maureen and Ian relax in their charming living room

Maureen and Ian show us their beautiful fountain garden

Maureen and Ian preparing for a little jaunt in the Bentley

We like to tell ourselves (and anyone else that will listen) that the Hamiltons enjoyed their stay. And we enjoyed having them.

Fairies & Wizards

Jody's birthday has come round again. And it seemed like only a year ago...

The thing about a Dubai birthday is that - like everything else in Dubai - birthdays have to be BIG.

Gone are the halcyon days of Pass the Parcel, Sleeping Lions and cheese-and-pineapple on sticks.

In their place, since we arrived, have been birthday-skiiing, birthday-swimming, birthday- ceramic-painting, birthday-bouncy-castling. You name it, the birthday kids have done it.

And the goody bags are like something you'd give Charlize Theron to thank her for hosting the Oscars.

So expectations were high.

For some reason that no one could remember later, we decided to have the party at home. Now, if you're boring enough to host your party at home, there is some kind of by-law that requires you to come up with a theme.

Jody's brief was straightforward - anything that involved wearing nail varnish. Since she also wanted to invite boys, we settled for 'Fairies and Wizards-who-don't-have-to-wear-nail-polish'.

Mark was sent out to get some material to drape over the sofas, with strict instructions it should be: 'silvery with stars on it, you know, something unisex.' Mark, being Mark, came back with about 54 miles of pink glittery see-through stuff, with which he covered the entire house.

But a glittery, pink house was not enough for Mark. Oh no. To add to the ambience he decided to empty a 6 foot refill bag of beanbag balls all over the floor.

Mark surveyed the result. And He saw that it was good.

"Fairy Dust" he declared.

Rachel hid her head in her hands.

Jody giggled.

Dylan started Fairy Dust Surfing...

When the house was decorated, it was time for the adults to get decorated (the smaller photo reflecting Rachel's unwillingness to appear in a picture wearing a big pink tutu).

In a moment of sanity, Rachel hired a lovely lady wizard to bear the brunt of a houseful of six year olds.

Mark was delighted, because her blue starry costume matched his.

Jody was delighted she got to dance with her favourite boy, Imraan (and his little brother).

And Rachel loved the magic lady but was terrified of her rabid, red-eyed rabbit-in-a-hat.

So. That'll be a skiing-birthday for next year then...

Today Better Homes, Tomorrow Time Magazine

Mark and Rachel were asked if they wanted to appear in Better Homes magazine, talking about why they liked living in Arabian Ranches.

Mark - it is worth mentioning at this point - is a big fan of appearing in magazines. He has already wangled himself a regular column in Dubai's Campaign magazine, where he discusses advertising trends in exchange for them putting a picture of him next to the by-line.

In fact, a quick glance through the local marketing press is a bit like playing 'Where's Wally?' with Mark appearing in all sorts of unlikely places as a result of him regularly plying his agency's PR company with snapshots.

Unsurprisingly, Mark's media-hungry alter-ego jumped at the chance of a front cover appearance.

Rachel was less eager. After decades spent cringing at photographs, Rachel has realised that one of two things must be true:

1) she is fearsomely unphotogenic

or 2) she is far less attractive that she thinks she is

However, nothing stands between Mark and his public, so the big day arrived, and Mark bounded into view(finder).

'Where do you want me?'

'Actually,' says the photographer. 'Research has shown that people much prefer women and children on the cover.'

So, Mark has to stand by while a grumpy Rachel, grumpier Dylan, and an unsurprisingly (given the worrying amount of genes inherited from her father) keen Jody sat through the photoshoot, while Rachel grumbled that they were called 'shoots' for a reason.

Just when everyone thought the worst was over, and the photographer was packing up to leave, Mark piped up,

'The garden looks really nice at night when it's all lit up. Why don't you pop back later?'

'Yay!' shouted Jody.

'I'm finished,' said Dylan firmly.

'Aaarrrrghghghgh,' said Rachel.

'Ok, why not?' said the photographer, who even let Mark be in the garden picture because it would be appearing inside the magazine rather than on the cover.

Dylan & Rachel were eventually tempted to participate with promises of chocolate. But they insisted that Mark was the one who had to sit for hours with his legs dangling in the cold pool.

The pictures didn't turn out too badly, and Rachel was particularly pleased to find Mark's garden shot next to an enormous puckered-up camel.

Even better is the interview inside. Katy has already sent a 'rotflmao' email, commenting on the irony of lazy-Rachel's alleged quote: 'and you can run, walk or roller skate all around the place.'

Back By Popular Demand...

Well, that's not strictly true, but we did get two emails saying it had been a while since the last blog entry.



The problem is, life has got busy. The lilo has been deflated and the sun loungers are gathering dust (well sand).



Mark is as busy as ever, setting the media world on fire and quality-testing the local beer. Jody has started a few 'activities', including the school choir - the irony of which will not be lost on anyone that has heard her sing. Rachel has accidentally stumbled upon a job writing beauty features for Arabic magazines - the irony of which...



Also, we have been working as a family to overcome Dylan's sad addiction to computer games.



So, what has happened since the last entry? Well, Christmas was as wonderful as Christmas is supposed to be.




We took the kids on a guided tour of Dubai's Christmas decorations. Unsurprisingly, Dylan's favourite was a display that featured killer Christmas trees.


It just felt a bit wrong being warm in December. So, when term ended, we left the sun behind for a freezing English Christmas. In a cunning attempt to wean Dylan from the Wii, we bought him and Jody some 'real' Mariokart action figures. So now battery-operated Yoshi is allowed to sit on the sofa and watch as Dylan plays virtual Wii Mariokarts.







Jody and Mark travelled to Ireland on the second leg of the 2008/9 family-tour, so Jody could show off her new 'High School Musical' outfit to someone who had actually seen the film - her cousin Naoise.






We read in the papers that Dubai had banned all New Year's celebrations out of respect for the suffering of the people in Gaza.




Well, we did Sheik Mohammed proud. After a day trip to London, Rachel and Mark fell asleep in front of granny's fire - accidentally missing their own New Year extravaganza.




Just another evening in the life of the rock 'n roll Hamilton family...

Dish dash day

On December 2nd, Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates celebrate National Day. It's officially described as "an occasion for the residents of the UAE community to reflect and take pride in the many developments and achievements reached within their country over the last thirty seven years."

Thirty seven years, that is, since they gained independence from British colonials. Still that part isn't mentioned much to allow all the Brit expats to join in.

And we are not talking a couple of national flags stuck on cars. The place is awash with the national colours: houses, restaurants, people, boats...

The children's school...

And some brilliant looking cars...

Incidentally, don't get the impression that people only plaster pictures of the Sheikh over the cars on National Day. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is a regular on spare tyres and car windows, and very handsome he is too in a hawkish Mills and Boon hero kind of way.

However, because we are still driving hire cars, we couldn't really do much to customise them. So, we decided to decorate our only remaining large accessories - the children - after the school sent a letter home, encouraging the kids to come in National Dress.

Unfortunately, whereas the local men always manage to look extremely crisp and regal in their dashing Dish Dashes... Dylan looked more like an escapee from a nativity play.

Jody, on the other hand, loved her abaya.

But, while the local women look highly proper, and very glamorous in thier abayas...

And while the local children looked completely charming in their outfits, there was something about the sight of the Western teachers and kids in their flowing black robes that bought Hogwarts to mind.

Still everyone seemed to have a great day - although Dylan got the hump (no pun intended) when Rachel refused to let him push in the queue to ride on a very tired-looking camel.

At home in the UK there's always a huge debate about whether St George deserves a day off, here, one day off is never enough. The kids are now off school for the next two weeks! Admittedly, this also incorporates next week's Eid, but it has to be said, life as a child in Dubai is one long holiday.

Fireworks, Hamilton Style

Last Thursday, the Dubai Atlantis Resort officially opened its doors with a $20 million grand party full of A-list celebrities, including Charlize Theron, Robert de Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Shirley Bassey, Janet Jackson and Michael Jordan.



Then, after Kylie performed on stage, the sky lit up with the world’s largest fireworks display, reportedly seven times greater than the Beijing Olympic’s opening ceremony, and extravagant enough to be seen from outer space.




A couple of people have sent messages to ask if we saw them. Well….

Mark went to the beach to watch the display, but didn’t realise that that he was in completely the wrong place, so he only saw one frond of the palm and said the fireworks looked “a bit crap”. Plus, by the time the fireworks came on (half past midnight) he had drunk so much that he probably wouldn’t have noticed them anyway if his friends hadn’t pointed him in the right direction.

Rachel did one better. She got the timing of the firework display so completely wrong that by the time she came out of the bar at 1am to watch them they were all over.

Still, we hear they were pretty impressive and the babysitter got to watch them on the TV.

Incy Wincy Redback Spider

Mark is scared of spiders. Mark is scared of lots of things. Truth be told, Mark is a great big scaredy-pants.

As a result, Rachel has put a lot of effort into preventing the children turning into mini scaredy-pants.

So, they have always been encouraged to pick up spiders and to view insects as nice, friendly, if slightly unattractive planet-sharers.

Except ants. Ants have been officially designated bad-insects and are the only living things the children are allowed to "hate" and stamp on at will. Indeed, last year, following a mass ant- massacre featuring a kettle of boiling water, Jody and Rachel had the following conversation...

JODY: "Mummy, I'm not sure I want to go to heaven."

RACHEL: "Okay, but don't tell granny."

JODY: "Huh?"

RACHEL: "Sorry, I mean, Why? Why don't you want to go to heaven?"

JODY: "Because it will be full of ants."


This wasn't long after the death of Jody's favourite fish. Following Freddy's demise, Jody had been very quiet all day. Rachel put it down to grief, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that human-Freddy - dead fish-Freddy's namesake - had been present at the time of death.

But at bed time Jody revealed the real reason for her pensiveness:

JODY: "Mummy, when I die, will you flush me down the toilet?"

RACHEL: "No. Definitely not."

JODY: "Why did you flush Freddy down the toilet?"

RACHEL: "Freddy is smaller and he likes water."

JODY: "So if I was smaller....?"

RACHEL: "No. No. I won't flush you down the toilet, no matter how small you get, or how much you like water."

JODY: "So, is fish heaven down the toilet?"

RACHEL: "Um, not exactly."

JODY: "You don't know, do you?"

RACHEL: "Er, no, not really."

JODY: "Granny will know. I'll ask granny in the morning. Thanks, mummy. Na night"


Anyway, back to the present day and spiders...

As a result of her ongoing hug-a-spider campaign, Rachel was a tad concerned by the letter that came home from the kids' school yesterday. Here are a few favourite extracts:


"Like any garden, play area or park in Dubai, we do occasionally find Redback spiders within the school grounds."

"Redback spiders are particularly prevalent at this time of year ..."

"It is not our intention to frighten the children... Spiders and scorpions are a part of life in Dubai, as much as camels and ‘unconventional’ driving."

"I seek to reassure you that the staff and in particular, our nurses are fully trained as to the action to take should an insect bite take place."

Unfortunately, parents aren't. So, while Mark lazed on the sofa, refusing to put his feet on the floor and gloating that he had been right all along, Rachel googled redback spiders.

RACHEL: "Hey, they're not all bad. These redback spiders eat ants."

MARK: "Yeah, but I haven't seen any ants in the house for a while."

RACHEL: "Says here that they have even been known to eat crickets." ... evil chuckle ... "Hey, Mark, if the ants have gone, and we haven't heard the cricket this evening...."

MARK: ...whimper...