Bits n bobs & Tinkhani

I thought I better write a general update post as I've been quite slack and a lot has happened. First though, I'd like to say thanks to those of you who have emailed with hints and tips for our planned trip to the Americas. I will reply as soon as I get a moment to myself.

To those of you who donated money to Tinkhani, you may like to know that I received a letter from him last week. He has finally received the money. It took me some time to get it to him as I had to arrange for a church in Southern Ireland to take the money into their bursary. Then then had to wire it to a priest in Zambia which took almost 6 weeks. The priest could not collect the money until he made his monthly trip into the city. Then he had to go back to the prison to deliver it to Tinkhani. Next time the process wont take as long as I've already done the research.

I received a letter from a very delighted Tinkhani who informed me that he was eating a banana for the first time in many years. He is now able to buy nutritional foods to help him fight his AIDs and hopefully build up his immune system and put on some weight. He couldn't thank us enough. I will type some of his letter into a blog post about it soon.

I will also write a special blog post with photos from our belly dance performance evening which was on Saturday. If you know my bebo address you can see the photos there already.

On Wednesday I have the appointment for my carotid doppler scan on my neck. The pulsatile tinnitus is really bad at the moment. I'm kind of hoping it stays bad for the scan. Last night was a particularly bad night. The whooshing sounds in my ear got very loud indeed (and still are). I was sitting on the bed and felt quite ill with it. During the night I woke to feel a pressure on my chest, as if someone was pushing down on it. My chest felt like it was full of fluid. Every time I turned onto my side I could feel a sensation of fluid draining across my body. It was not pleasant at all. This morning I spent 2 hours with a fluidy feeling across my chest, and a mild pain when breathing in, so I phoned my doctor for advice. I have had these symptoms many times when the tinnitus is at its worst. My doctor requested I went straight to the surgery for an ECG test. Well, when I got there the fluid feeling had gone, but the pain was still there. They hooked me up to all these wires and did a sort of 5 second ECG. My heart appeared fine. She couldn't hear any fluid in my chest and I appeared normal. So I don't know whats going on. Now it is 1.30pm and my chest is still sore. At least I can explain all this at my scan on Wednesday. The doctor said that if the ENT people can not find anything I will then be referred to a heart specialist. I just wish someone could actually find something that matches my symptoms, because at the moment I'm sure they think I'm making it all up!

Well I have to go and make Barney some lunch now but I will post tonight with photos from the belly dancing evening.

Tentative Planning

Whether we do take the 7 month trip in January 2008 depends largely on whether Jimmie's school will keep his place open for him. They are meeting to discuss this next week. Until then we are trying to hold back on planning too much, or getting too excited. But this is difficult.

After much discussion we have decided that a tour of America will be the best for us. It's maybe not as exotic as the far east or scary as Africa, but it will be the best trip for us to undertake as a family with children. It will be the cheapest trip for us too.

Last night we tried to work out where we would visit and how long it would take etc. We know nothing about America really and so our initial plans could be way off and could change drastically. But taking into account the weather in the USA and Central America we decided that it would be best to arrive in Florida (see the blue dot on the map) in January, and travel around the southern states and central america before it gets to the heat of summer. So last night rough diagram shows our suggested route (honestly, we don't have a clue what we are talking about - so would greatly appreciate comments from our American blog readers!) Travelling from Florida (visiting the Everglades) we would go up to Georgia and visit my death row penpal, and then westwards through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (possibly up a bit to Arkansas and Oklahoma) into Texas. From Texas we would travel down south to Mexico, Guatemala (I might pick up an orphan or two there!), Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, not heading any further into South America. We would then head back northwards into California (plus Disney World), and then spend some time in Nevada, Arizona and Utah (visiting the grand canyon for a week). Then we would travel up into Wyoming and from there eastwards through either the top of America, or the middle, until we got right back to the east coast. Then we would travel down into Virginia, North and South Carolina and back down to Florida.

So that was the first attempt at a travel route. As I said that plan could change, and we would appreciate suggestions from anyone who knows what they are talking about. Is there anything in the USA that we just should not miss? We will obviously buy lots of books to plan with, if we get the all clear from the school.

My Mummy

When I was in Dubai little Barney missed me so much that he drew me a picture. This is a picture of me, his Mummy. Complete with glasses and long black hair (actually I thought it was hair but I'm informed it is actually my legs!) Its just such a cute picture. One that I will treasure forever. Thanks Barney :)

The question is, are we brave enough?

Well, there's been a lot to talk about here the last few days. As anyone working in the music industry will know, the whole CD business in general is slowly dieing a death. Music stores all across the nation are closing down and many owners are looking for new jobs or ways to make money. We are noticing a sure change in the amount of Cd's we are selling and will more than likely not keep the shop open once our contract is up in January. This is quite sad. For many years Dan has worked so hard to provide for his family in this way.

So we got to talking about what to do next. We decided that we have two options. 1) Feel sorry for ourselves, worry about the future, panic and generally stress. Or 2) See this change as a great opportunity. There have been so many things we have wanted to do but couldn't because of the tie of the shop and Dan being self employed. Come January we will not have these ties or any kind of responsibility, and will theoretically be looking for new jobs.

So why not take some time out? For years I've talked about selling everything and travelling around the world. But after talking with Dan this week we have come to realise that we wouldn't need to sell our home to do it. So what we are thinking about is freezing our mortgage for a year, renting out our house to a family, selling everything that is cluttering up our lives and taking off on a journey, with the kids for 8 months.

Why eight months? Well, in September 2008 Annabelle is due to start high school and Luke will be the age to start primary school (although we haven't yet decided to send him to school). What we are seriously considering is a big journey, by road, across a continent or two. We have so many ideas and feel a little scared by it all, but we've talked about it so much now that I really can't see us not doing it.

The question is where to go? At first I fancied a trip across Europe, and into either Asia or Africa (or both). I started researching on the Internet and found some fabulous sites recording journeys that people are currently undertaking.

• The Africa Overland Network which actually covers the whole world, not just Africa
• Magbaz travels
• RV Life the story of a family driving (RVing) across America
• London2Sydney the story of two guys travelling from London to Sydney by car

The Africa Overland network contains hundreds of blogs written by people travelling across the world. Its an amazing read.

The possibilities of where to travel are endless and planning a trip like this would take months. We have 4 possibilities.

1. Travel in campervan from Ireland, through the UK, into Europe stopping at as many countries as we please along the way (France, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Turkey - the possibilities are endless) and then travelling on into Asia through countries such as India, Nepal, China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.
2. Travel in campervan from Ireland, through the UK, into Europe stopping at as many countries as we please along the way, and then travelling on into Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya etc)
3. Flying to America or Canada and travelling in RV across the Americas, (Alaska, Canada, various states of the US, Mexico) and then south into Guatemala Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Brazil, Chile etc)
4. Flying to Australia and spending 8 months driving across the whole of Australia.

Dan is keen to do the Americas. I wasn't at first but after looking into it the prospect is more appealing. We could fly there cheaper than Australia, and we could buy an RV there which we could sell before we leave. We would speak the language in the north and break ourselves in slowly. America is a vast land with every type of scenery and landscape and weather possible. Then travelling into the South we would see more exotic lands and different cultures.

I was more keen to travel through Europe, as there are so many countries to see, all vastly different, and then into Asia or Africa. Travelling by car to Asia or Africa un-nerves me a bit and I'm not sure I'm actually brave enough! Travelling to Australia would be the most costly, for the flights.

So we are not sure what we are doing. But one thing is for sure, life will be changing round here come Christmas time, and I'd prefer it changed for the better, into something exciting and adventurous. It's also just occured to me that I may well be able to meet with one of my prison pen pals on two of these journeys. That would be exciting!

So what do you all think?

You know you're getting old when...

...Your eldest child goes on their first date! Oh yes. It has happened. Today Jimmie went to the cinema with a girl from his class, albeit she somewhat conned him into a date, but it was all very sweet. She asked him if he would go with her and her best friend to see Spiderman 3, and he agreed. But just before he left to meet them she texted him to say her friend had pulled out and would it be ok if they went alone. Like a true gentleman he texted her back to say it was fine with him as long as her parents didn't mind. Bless him, he was so nervous waiting at the cinema. Dan took him as far as the entrance, and he said that the wee girl was lovely looking, and all dressed up to impress. They stood in line and barely said a word to each other. When Jimmie got home he had to tell us that he had offered to pay for her ticket because he felt it was the gentlemanly thing to do, and she had accepted, and thanked him. He obviously takes after his father there. I was quite impressed. After he arrived home he got another text from her checking that he had gotten home safely! When did kids get so thoughtful?! It's like something from an old movie. Outside the cinema they bumped into some friends from school who asked them if they were on a date. Both of them said nothing and the friends so "oh, I see!" So no doubt they will be the talk of the class at school tomorrow. When did my children grow up? They were babies yesterday.

Sprouting - as requested

I promised a few people that I would do a blog post about sprouting. I will also do one about milling at some point.

As any regular readers of my blog will know, I am pretty into sprouting. I've read a lot of books and done a lot of research and practice on it. It's an every day part of life in our household now. More and more people are learning about the benefits of eating sprouts, but not many people here in Northern Ireland do it, or know where to get the ingredients necessary for sprouting. It has taken me literally hours and hours of research to be able to find retailers of sproutable grains that deliver to my address. In the US you can buy whatever you please to sprout at cheap prices. Here, a little more effort is needed. But I have noticed over the last year that our country is slowly becoming more aware of the growing circle of sprouters and raw foodists. Tescos have recently started stocking a whole heap of ingredients that I had to search out before. If Tescos are stocking it, then people must be buying it.

So why do I sprout? Well, in a country where most of our fruits and vegetables are grown half way across the world, packaged and sent on long trips and stored sometimes for many months before being put out of the supermarket shelves just before they go mouldy, it can be hard to get hold of really fresh produce, at a reasonable price. I do grow veg in my back garden but I can not grow enough to feed my family, year round, in our back yard. The beauty of sprouting is that it is extremely nutritious, extremely easy, extremely cheap, and you don't even need a garden to do it. We can grow enough green stuff via sprouts and sunflower greens to feed our family for a few pounds a week. That's five people. Not bad.

What is sprouting? Well, its basically the process of taking a seed, nut or pulse, and making it sprout. These sprouts would usually grow into new plants, but we eat them just after germination. I think that the average NI diet is extremely lacking in seeds, nuts and pulses. Many people here hardly eat fruit or veg, never mind seeds. The seeds used for sprouting can be eaten at the seed stage - sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, lentils, peas, etc. So why bother sprouting them? The sprouting of a seed starts a natural process. When a seed sprouts it produces enzymes which aid its digestion when eaten. Our pancreas produces enzymes to digest our food. But the pancreas is not designed to produce enough enzymes to digest everything. It is merely made to top-up our enzyme levels when we eat something hard to digest, such as meat. The majority of our digestive enzymes should come from the raw food that we eat. Any raw fruit or vegetable will contain enzymes. But many people eat little or no raw food, and so their bodies are put under strain, trying to produce enough enzymes to digest a very dense meaty, carbohydrate-full diet.

So sprouts are easy to digest, and aid the digestion of other foods. Not only that, but per calorie they are the richest source of vitamins, enzymes, minerals and protein. They nourish the entire body and enhance the immune system. During the sprouting process seed fats are converted to essential fatty acids and carbohydrates, and proteins are converted to essential amino acids. Both of which are sorely lacking in many western diets. The vitamin content also increases dramatically in comparison to its dry state.

Sunflower seeds can be sprouted (use hulled seeds) or grown into sunflower greens (use un-hulled seeds). Sunflower greens are high in everything that the sprouted seed has, with the addition of chlorophyll (anything that you sprout long enough to grow green leaves will contain chlorophyll). Chlorophyll is known to regenerate the blood stream and is also a powerful blood cleanser. Chlorophyll is basically liquid sunshine. The sun shine is what makes the plants leaves go green. Sunflower greens can be grown indoors without soil, but are better grown in soil trays outside in natural sunlight. They consume nutrients from the soil and are therefore higher in nutrient value than greens grown without soil.

When we buy our vegetables in the local supermarket we are basically eating something which has come to the end of its life. Sure, raw veg from the shops is better than no veg at all. But sprouts and greens grown at home are eaten whilst still alive. They are harvested and eaten straight away. They have had no time to lose vitamin or enzyme content. You literally could not eat anything better for you. There are many many books that promote the use of sprouts, greens and wheat grass juices to heal the body of many ailments, including cancers. I think prevention is better than cure. What is considered by most health professionals in today's society to be a healthy diet, is actually a very poor diet. Of all the animals on the planet we are the only ones to cook our food, or to package it and toxify it with chemicals. But now days this is considered to be normal (I am not, by the way, promoting the consumption of raw meat - so anyone who watched that episode of Wife Swap, please don't think I'm that crazy, LOL). Animals eat their food as it grows. They do not seem so be suffering from all the illnesses that have taken hold of the human race. I'm pretty sure that what we are putting into our bodies is killing us.

Anyway, before I start to sound like a paranoid control freak, let me summarise by saying this. Our family eats a lot of sprouts and greens. It is cheap, tasty, healthy and nutritious. Since eating lots of raw foods and sprouts my metabolism has sped right up, which is a bonus. When we eat more of this food we all sleep better, have higher energy levels, greater clarity and concentration, and just generally feel much better.

Sprouting is easy. Here are a few photos for those who are interested in learning more, and also a few links.

You do not need to buy specialist equipment to sprout. However, I use this sprouting tier a lot of the time. You can also use jars, hemp bags or just a glass dish and a colander. All work well. I like to use the hemp bags for sprouting sunflower seeds. I use the tier more for the smaller seeds such as alfalfa. I use the jars for the seed mixes, and if I am sprouting a lot of large seeds (chick peas, lentils, mung beans etc) I just use a colander and bowls.

In this photo you can see 3 tiers each containing just one tablespoon full of seeds. One tray has alfalfa, one has broccoli seeds, and the other has red clover seeds. From one table spoon you can grow a whole tray. These are the seeds on their first day, unsprouted.


Here in this sprouting jar we have a biosnacky gourmet mix of seeds. I buy many of my sprouting seeds from biosnacky. That packet of seeds cost 99p. I would get about 4 full jars of seesds out of that, so it goes a long way. You can see that there are only a few seeds in that jar, but in a the next photo you can see that they have grown to fill the whole jar.

Most of the seeds need to be soaked over night before straining (as in this photo). Then it is simply a case of rinsing them three times a day and draining them thoroughly until they have grown. You can eat most of them within a day, or you can let them grow until the leaf stage. The same seeds will taste different depending on how long you let them grow. We just keep harvesting ours as we need them, and leaving the rest to grow on longer, until they are all gone. Most of them take about 4 days to grow to an optimum size and taste.

Here is a photo of the sprouts after about 4 days of growth. You can see how one table spoon of seeds produces a full packed tray of nutritional goodness. And they taste amazing. I love eating these smaller sprouts. Sunflower sprouts are also a favourite of mine. Whilst Dan likes lentils, wheat and mung beans sprouted.




Here are some newly harvested sunflower greens. Little Barney picks these during the day and eats them straight from their growing trays! I doubt many 3 year olds consume as many sunflower greens as he does. I absolutely love these and they are so cheap to grow (about 12p a tray). We use them in salads and sandwiches mostly. The sunflower seeds are grown in soil for 1 - 2 weeks (depending on the weather or warmth). They must be harvested at the two leaf stage. We have accidentally let them grow another set of leaves but they taste better picked younger. I buy my sunflower seeds here.

Another day, if people are interested, I can post step by step photos on the sprouting process. But now I have to leave it because there is a queue for the pc!

A family evening

Daddy is flavour of the month with Barney at the moment. Since I started working almost full time in the shop, and Dan has been at home with the kids, my popularity has plummeted with our youngest who groans in despair if its my day to stay at home instead of Daddy. Daddy is, apparently, more fun and plays games. I lay in bed on Friday morning (my day off - Dan's day to work) with Barney and asked him some questions on the matter. What is Daddy better at? He's better at playing, laughing, having fun, jumping on the trampoline and doing fun stuff. So what is Mummy better at? He struggled to answer this and then proudly came up with "you are better at sleeping". Well, I had to laugh at that. So I set about making my day off work as fun as possible, in an attempt to win back some credibility. The problem is, you see, that I'm working maybe 5 or 6 days a week. Then when I get a day off there is always some huge chore to do - like gutting and cleaning one of the kids rooms. So I never seem to be fun. So on Friday morning I spent an hour playing in a duvet tent on my bed, with Barney. The tent was his cafe, and he cooked me all sorts of culinary delights including raspberry sandwiches, tuna salad, fish fingers and chips, and a magic cherry pie that changes flavours with every bite. Barney seemed to enjoy this, but later in the day when we were telling Daddy what fun we'd had he said "that wasn't playing Mummy that was just doing stuff on the bed". Sigh.

I did a few necessary chores and then we went out to play on the trampoline, but I jumped too high and sent him flying through the air, landing on his right hand and causing immense agony to my three year old. I thought I made up for it by doing a 20 minute intense workout on the trampoline with him - chasing him in circles around it, jumping, copying his moves (I must have lost half a stone). Then, in desperation I took him to tesco cafe for lunch. This was a good move I think and certainly boosted my popularity, although apparently Daddy prefers to take him for breakfast, which is nicer. Hmmm.

Barney had been asking to have a BBQ in the garden for ages, so in Tescos I said he could help me buy the meat to cook, and then we would surprise Daddy with a BBQ when he got home from work. He was certainly excited about this and we had a lovely family evening in the garden. It was a warm day, but since I've just got back from Dubai I had to eat my BBQ under a sleeping bag for warmth! Here are some photos.

Mummy and Daddy relaxing and enjoying the fact that their eldest child is now old enough to cook food on a BBQ unaided. Wow, finally we can chill a bit.

Here's young Jimmie doing his thing, preparing food for all us hungry carnivores.

(Yeah, I know, its not raw or vegan)

Dan set the camera to take a shot of all of us.

Elephant Poo Paper !!

How about this for the ultimate in recycling and reusing?! Elephant poo paper. Yes it is really made from elephant poo. I discovered it at this site and this is what they say about it.


Yes, this journal is made from elephant poo and other recycled fibres! In permaculture, they say "The problem is the solution" and the "problem" of what to do with elephant poo has been turned into a wonderful solution - 100% recycled paper.

Of course you're going to ask "Does it smell?" and the answer is definatly "No!". The poo is washed and dried to leave the fibres from the plants the elephant ate.

Size: 17cm x 20cm (7" x 8"). Hand made in Thailand.
A percentage of profits from the sale of this product is contributed towards the conservation of elephants.

Available in a choice of four colours: green, blue, pink and bark.

Your Brain is Green

Of all the brain types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Brain?

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates

Dubai was fantastic. Excellent, memorable, exotic, hot. I had a fabulous week there, although I was glad to get home to my lovely family who I missed deeply. (Erm, I can hear them all down stairs arguing! But yes, I guess I even missed that!)

I don't know where to start writing about it all. I could do a day by day account of where I went and what I did, but I think I will just talk about it randomly, as things come to me.

Well, Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, situated between Saudi Arabia and Oman, and across the water from Iran. The Persian Gulf is the sea along its shores. Only 20% of the residents of Dubai are Arabs, the other 80% are made up of ex-pats from all across the globe. The city really is still being built and is to some extent a massive building site. The main language spoken in Dubai is English although many languages can be heard. All the street signs and menu's etc are written in both English and Arabic, so it really is an easy place to tour around. I didn't have much idea at all of what to expect before I left.



My flight to Dubai went via Paris, from Dublin. The flight from Dublin to Paris took 1 1/2 hours, and then from Paris to Dubai was a further 7 hours. It is possible to get direct flights but these cost a lot more. I flew over night and arrived in Dubai at 8 am on Wednesday morning (3 hours ahead of UK time).

The weather was gorgeous for the entire week - not a single drop of rain, so no humidity. I didn't find it too hot the majority of the time. I think the temperature ranged from about 32 C up to 46C on one of the hotter days (when I actually did have to get a taxi to the villa and sleep off my headache!) Anyone thinking of travelling to Dubai, just remember, don't go in the summer when it gets to over 50C and even the locals don't venture outside!

I'm gonna just post some photos and write a bit about them rather than going through a day by day run down of what I did.... You can view all of my photos in my flickr account by clicking here. (there are 3 pages of photos so don't forget to click through the pages to see them all) Also, the photos posted below can be seen full size by clicking on them.



This is me at the entrance to the Irish Village! Since Dubai is so multi-cultural it is possible to eat any type of food from any country. We had a few nice meals here. I must have put on a stone in weight!








Talking of food, this is me with one of the waiters at the Meridian Hotel. They were having a South African evening and all of the waiting staff looked like something out of a Tarzan film! For the cost of about £20 we could eat and drink as much as we wanted. There was an African band playing, and authentic African food. I was lucky enough to sample crocodile steak, crocodile salad, stir fried ostrich and BBQ'd wart hog! Being a natural coward, I decided to pass on the big black worm salad (basically massive black marinated caterpillars - think of those witchety grubs on 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here', just black !!!!)



This photo was taken on the same evening at the African dinner. These two Arab men offered me some chewing gum as they were walking past! "For you" they said. So I said thanks and asked if I could take their photo. At this point I hadn't seen many people in authentic Arabic clothing and I wanted to show my kids what they looked like. So they said yes, and posed for me. Later that night to my horror and amusement they had called a cab and were expecting me to go somewhere with them!!! Well, I laughed my guts out. I had no idea that accepting chewing gum meant so much more to an Arab man that it does to a Caucasian woman. LOL! That night (Thursday night - the start of the weekend in Dubai) I was propositioned by no less than 8 men, including the 2 Arabs, 2 Jordanians, 2 Syrians and 2 Iraqis! Wow, so popular! One Jordanian dentist even offered very kindly to give me a thorough dental examination with his tongue!!! Well, I almost wet myself laughing and he was not impressed.

Here are my Dubai friends D & W who kindly took me out for that evening. I think they are trying to avoid my camera in this shot.

D is working in Dubai on business and has a lovely villa there with a swimming pool. During the day if I was home I had the place to myself, including the pool!

(Yes, that is me in the pool - jealous yet?)



I did so much while I was there, including the open top bus tour (mandatory tourist adventure for any city holiday!) One of the highlights was definitely the beaches. In particular Jameirah Beach Park.













This is Jameirah Beach Park from the air (no I didn't take this photo myself, lol)









I spent 2 full days on the beach, sitting under the shade of a palm tree. This was my view on day one, of another palm and the sea in the distance. The sky looks quite dull in this photo because I think it was full of sand!


















As I looked the the left or right of where I was sitting on the beach I could see palm trees and the odd little hut, plus a few sun bathers.
















OK, so it was quite tough to get photos of myself on the beach, but just to prove I was there here is a photo of me - the whitest legs in Dubai.


I must say that I really enjoyed those two days on the beach. Just lying there relaxing, with nothing to do - no dinner to make, or children to bath, or Cd's to sell. It was just heaven. I even managed to swim in the Persian Gulf a good few times, the water was lovely and warm. It was so clear that I could see blue jelly fish (no one seemed worried about them so I presumed they weren't poisonous!), star fish, and shoals of little fish swimming around in the shallow waters!


On one of his days off work D took me to some of the city's huge shopping malls. These malls are like nothing that I've ever seen in the UK. They are more like palaces. Because of the heat most of the shops are inside big air conditioned malls. Two of the malls we visited were out of this world. The first one (I forget its name) had different levels decorated as various countries (china, India, Tunisia etc). One of these area was lit and decorated to be permanently dusk - with twinkling stars in the ceiling, dim street lamps - it really felt like shopping at sunset! Here is a little photo of it (click to see larger)








Every area of that mall was decorated like a palace. I just had to take a photo of this starbucks cafe where we had a cup of coffee. Just look at the ceiling! I felt like I was inside the Taj Mahal or something! Have you ever seen a Starbucks like this one???? Everything in Dubai is the best in the world. Anything you could look at would be the tallest in the world, or the oldest, or the widest, narrowest, longest, shortest, in the world. Anything that they build has to be the best. You simply must click on this starbucks photo to see it full size. It blew my mind!

The second mall was called the Mall of the Emirates, and this one had an indoor ski slope with REAL snow! Honestly, I stood in my summer clothes in this huge mall looking through a huge glass window at people in ski clothes with hats and woolly scarves! The adults were skiing and the children were throwing snow balls and tobogganing. Only in Dubai!

D took this photo of me in the mall toystore. Even the toy store is larger than life. This truly has to be the biggest teddy bear on the planet! I was chuffed that 3 Arabs walked into my photo as well, to make it truly middle eastern.

Whilst shopping in one of these malls we found a shop selling the clothes that the local Arabic muslim people wear. A very helpful lady told me that they sell a lot of them to tourists and both D and I went a little crazy thinking that they would make good souvenirs. So I bought Dan a full Arab outfit (long white robe with red and white tea towel type head scarf!) and bought myself the muslim lady's Abaia! When we got back to the villa and I tried it on D almost wet himself laughing.

I do have a photo of Dan in his outfit but I don't yet has his consent to put it on the blog. Give me time though ;)

This is how the local muslim women dress when they leave the house. Whilst walking round the malls there would be many women dressed like this, and they were exactly the same as the western women. They did not walk three steps behind their husbands or anything like that. The muslim families out shopping in their beautiful traditional clothes were just like everyone else - friendly, polite, walking hand in hand with their children. In their own homes the women take these coverings off and wear jeans and a t-shirt like the rest of us.

The other day that I really enjoyed from my trip was the day that I travelled to the Old Souk and Gold Souk area's of Dubai. These areas consisted of hundreds of little streets filled with souks selling all sorts of wares. I spent hours walking around these streets (this was the hottest day when I ended up feeling quite ill). Every street I walked down the sellers would call "madam, madam, look what I have for you", or "Madam, shop here please". At the start I found it quite intimidating being there all alone, but I soon discovered that all the sellers were friendly and pleasant, and I quite enjoyed myself. It didn't take me long to realise that the price I was quoted at the start was not nearly the price that they would sell at. I looked at some postcards and asked "how much". "Two durhams each" was the reply. So I looked for a bit, then walked away and heard "but for you madam just one durham each", and then finally "but I will sell you 6 for five durhams". LOL. I had the best time shopping in some of the belly dance shops and came home with 12 new shimmy belts (6 for me and 6 for Mum).

This is the front of one of the belly dance souks in the old souk area (note the Arab costume on the left - which is identical to the one I bought Dan).

And here am I in the belly dance shop where I spent quite some time. I'm sporting a pink shimmy belt in this photo - on the other photo in flickr you can see all the belts out on the table. The man on the right who looks like he's from Albert Square insisted on undoing the knot in this belt with his teeth!!!

Here is a photo from one of the antique shops selling everything that your heart could desire.

This man is filling little bottles up with different coloured Arabian sands. Somehow he manages to draw camels in the sand and write the word 'Dubai'.

Well, I took many more photos but I can't possibly put them all on my blog. I had a great time - relaxing, exciting, adventurous, scary, fun. And at the end of it I was so glad to get home to my beautiful family. Dan, being his usual romantic self, was waiting for me at the airport (all dressed up) with a boquet of flowers. I, on the other hand, had developed a stinking cold on the flight home and looked like I'd been dragged a hedge backwards. I did so much more than I've written about here, but writing this so far has been like a project. Things will come back to me over the next few days and I may come back to write more about it. But all in all it was a great adventure, one that I will never forget, and I am extremely grateful to my friends in Dubai for putting me up, or putting up with me - THANKS GUYS. I had a lovely time and have many precious memories. And let me just say a HUGE thank you to Dan as well for making me go, and for keeping things ticking over here in my absence.

Belly dancing photos, and more...

I have just emptied the camera memory card to take on my trip and I found some interesting photos from the last week or so, so I though I'd stick them on here for everyones enjoyment.


Barney & Annabelle played animals and dinosaurs in the upstairs landing and then Annabelle must have set her camera to take a photo of them both. I thought this was so cute, they look so friendly and happy playing together!
If only it was like that all the time!










The carnage of packing for a trip to the middle east!











Mum came round last week with her three new belly dancing outfits. We had a hilarious time up in my bedroom trying the costumes on and dancing round the room! The kids enjoyed it as much as we did and everyone gave their opinions on which outfit suited us best. Mum will be wearing the black and copper outfit for our performance in June and I will be wearing the purple one. (Unless of course I purchase something new in Dubai!)




Mum in the copper outfit, with my coin shimmy belt which matched perfectly, and then in the shocking pink number (which I aptly looked shocking in!)

I liked the purple and the copper outfits, but then I do just always look fab in anything I throw on! These costumes are for our tribal fusion gypsy dance, and so they are gypsy in style and will be worn with coin bras! (I know! The horror!!!!) which we have to make. Egyptian belly dance costumes vary depending on the style of the dance.

Midnight caller!

Last night the phone rang at 2.30am. Needless to say my heart skipped a beat as I thought something terrible must have happened to someone. It was the guy who works in our shop. The same guy who is covering for me in the shop while I go to Dubai (tomorrow!) for eight days. He was in a drunken stupor, asking to speak to Dan. I explained that Dan was fast asleep and he would have to speak to me. So he drunkenly explained that he will not be working in the shop any more and that we would have to find someone else to cover for my holiday. I was not amused. I talked to him for 5 minutes and listened to him whining on about lots of things (all of which basically boiled down to a drink problem). In the end I just told him to phone me back in the morning and I had to put the phone down in the end. Then I lay there all night worrying about who could possibly cover the shop for me. There actually isn't anyone that can do it. The only option we have is for Steve to run the shop with the kids with him all day (not ideal) or to shut it for eight days (also not ideal considering the cost of my trip and the money we need to take). Dan has gone round to speak with this guy this morning but I don't hold out much hope. I really don't actually want to give him the work if he is that unreliable. Oh dear, what to do. I leave tomorrow afternoon. I'm working in the shop today and am all packed and ready to leave. This has taken the edge off of the excitement somewhat though.

Edit - I am now happy to say that this person phoned me this morning and apologised profusely. He was mortified and embarrassed and is going to work the week, although he know that I will not put up with it again. So hes gonna be on his best behaviour. Phew!

Have I ever worked this hard in one day?

Probably not. I only have 3 days until I leave for my little trip to Dubai. Since I have been working full time in the shop we realised this morning that I haven't had a second to do all the things that need to be done before I leave. So today Dan worked in the shop and I spent the morning buying things that I needed for the trip - suntan lotion, a sun hat, sun glasses, after sun lotion and so on. Then this afternoon I planted out the entire vegetable garden, a job which last year took me two weeks. The problem is that I should have done it a few weeks back, but because I've been working in the shop I just haven't had time. And if I left it till I got back it would be too late to get a good crop. So today I worked my little (!?!?!) butt off in the garden. I dug, weeded, seeded. I planted in 5 varieties of potato (not an easy job in land made of clay). I sowed seeds for 5 varieties of lettuce, 2 varieties of radish, spinach, beetroot, onions, spring onions, sunflowers, and lots more. My hands are raw from cuts and scrapes, and encrusted in seemingly irremovable dirt! No, not a pretty site.

But I am very excited about my trip. Today in Dubai it was 38 C in the shade (!!!!!!!!!) so I am a little worried about what I have let myself in for. I will be leaving from Dublin airport at 7.30pm on Tuesday evening, flying throughout the night, stopping at Paris, and arriving in Dubai at 8am (their time) on Wednesday morning (5am our time). Hopefully I will get some sleep on the night. Our friend is picking me up from the airport and showing me around their villa, then going off to work and leaving me to unwind and relax. My plan is to relax a lot! I will not get a tan because it is far too hot for me to come out of the shade, but that's ok.

If I have access to a computer I will post a blog post or two whilst I am away. Oooohhhh, I'm so excited! But right now, I need to have a bath, eat, and sort through the bin bag of 'summer clothes' (ahem, we don't actually use them in this country so my range is very small) that Dan just got out of the loft for me.

Don't miss me too much!

Woo hoo. It's official! I'm going to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates next week! Yes I am. I'm going on my own, without any kids! Even without my darling hubbie. But it's going to be so good. I am staying with some family friends out there who have an apartment with a swimming pool, near to the beaches and the city. My plan is to chill out big time. Will write more about it later. Wooooohoooo, sunshine here I come!