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...

Handsome Pilot Jonny Wallace

Living in Budapest, Rachel and Mark used to see quite a bit of Jonny Wallace, when he owned the skies of Eastern Europe in his British Airways shorthaul plane. Then we returned to England, and since we all lived in the same country we didn't see each other once.

So, when we moved 3,500 miles away to live in Dubai, we were delighted to hear that one of the side-benefits was that we would be able to resume our friendship with Handsome Pilot Jonny Wallace, as we were back on his route map.

We tempted him away from his BA Hotel, with promises of fine wine, fine dining and fine swimming pools. And then served him fine Heineken and fine local takeaway. We also forgot to take the towels out of the washing machine - but, luckily, the kids towel ponchos had escaped the wash.

He was the perfect guest - sleeping until after lunch and then spending the afternoon eating McDonalds and playing on the dodgem cars with Rachel and the kids.

Here's hoping Jonny's jumbo flies this way again soon.

(Apologies to any BA pilots out there if the London/Dubai flight is not a jumbo, but sometimes alliteration is more important than accuracy.)

We are family. I got all my sisters (well, one of them) and me.

Rachel's sister, Katy, and her husband, Rick, like exotic holidays. Rachel's sister, Katy, and her husband, Rick, are blessed with an abnormally well behaved child, so they are still able to have exotic holidays.

One of the great things about Dubai is its location half-way-there to lots of exotic places. So Katy, Rick and Harriet got off their Maldives-bound plane at our stop, to spend a week chez Hamilton.

On the way to pick them up from the airport, Mark and Rachel's conversation went something like this:

Mark: "Look, the cars are moving much faster on the other side of the traffic island."

Rachel: "Mmm."

Mark: "Shall I just drive over the traffic island?"

Rachel: "Wouldn't bother. It's illegal."

Mark: "Yeah, but shall I just drive over the traffic island? It'd save loads of time."

Rachel: "We're actually early."

Mark: "Yeah, but shall I just drive over the traffic island?"

Rachel: "The roads join in a couple of minutes anyway."

Mark: "Yeah, but shall I just drive over the traffic island?"

Rachel: "No."

Mark: "I think I'm going to drive over the traffic island."

Rachel: "I wouldn't."

Mark: "Don't be boring..."

Tyres: "Squeeeeeeeal"

Police car: "Nee nah nee nah"

Half an hour later we were not early any more, the tyres were not squealing any more, and Mark was not calling Rachel boring any more. He was too busy staring miserably at his charge sheet -written in Arabic to stop him understanding how big the fine was for each of his many offences: illegal overtaking; driving on prohibited land; travelling without identification; failing to transfer his UK licence to a UAE licence; and ignoring his infinitely more intelligent wife. Disappointingly, it later transpired that there was no punishment for the last one (but six points on his nice new licence and a pretty hefty fine for the rest of them).

Anyway, after a slight detour round the wrong Terminal - because we weren't late enough already - we found Katy, Rick and Harriet.

In preparation for their luxurious stay in the Maldives, we had decided that Katy and Rick should sleep in our maid's room and Harriet could sleep in the toilet. Well, beside it. Most Dubai villas have a maid's room next to, or as part of, the utility room. We're lucky with the size of ours - if you don't want to open the door you can fit a small double bed in it. The special bonus is the en-suite, which is easily transformed into a small child's bedroom by sticking the travel cot in the shower cubicle and adding an Upsy-daisy doll. We thoughtfully put the shower head on the floor to stop it dripping on Harriet during the night.

For a one-year-old, Harriet adapted quickly to the gruelling daily grind of life with the Hamiltons. She was soon swimming...

sunbathing....

and playing wii with the best of them.

Of course, all visitors to Dubai must be taken to the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel. The Burj is known as the world's only 7 star hotel. Possibly because it invented its own classification.

To commemorate Katy and Rick's stay, Rachel demonstrated her photographic talents by taking a picture of Katy and Rick standing in front of the Burj. At night.

Come on, it's the curvy shadow next to Rick's right ear.

Well, let it never be said that we don't know how to show our visitors a good time. We got a babysitter and whisked them out on the town. Unfortunately Mark thought Rachel was booking somewhere and Rachel thought Mark was booking somewhere. Still, we only had to wait an hour for a table, and we got a fantastic spot between the gents and ladies toilets.

And the boys got to finish the evening off with their hookahs. (Alas, not so funny written down)...

All in all, I think that Katy, Rick and Harriet had a jolly old time in the world's only self-designated 7 star villa.