The smokin’ gun

OK everyone, I owe all and sundry big apologies because it’s been nearly a month since I blogged. And my last post was a bit brief, the one before that my usual moany return to form.

So, while I am at my desk at work and have absolutely shedloads to be doing (it’s Thursday afternoon as well – the clock’s a’ tickin’ till the weekend baby!), I’m determined to post an update on what’s been going on – because the work that needs to be done will still need to be done and it always will – that’s the nature of work innit?

Anyway, as you can see, I am STILL at work and it’s partly because of the extremely unsettling and uncertain time I’ve endured here recently that I’ve been keeping schtum – as it turns out my job is safe. For now. That’s all anyone can say at the moment isn’t it?

Anyway, big news. I’ve given up smoking! Yes, that’s right – don’t faint from surprise or snort knowingly to yourself, “ahh she’ll be back, I know it, that girl loves a snout!”. Yes, me and fags are over. O V A H.  (I mean of course the fags you smoke not the fags who are fabulous).

It’s been unsurprisingly difficult, and I won’t talk you through the usual soulbashing I went through to do it, but as you would imagine, withdrawal has been quite hellish. It seems that I have quite a few unresolved rage issues (who’d have thunk it?!) and I have been variously filled with almost uncontrollable venom, spite, bile and plain old teeth gnashing frustration over the smallest of irritations, issues and mishaps. I know you love a list (well I do, anyway), so here it comes. It’s a special list of some Dubai-specific things that have made me mad, cross and angry in the 13 days I have been smoke-free:

– Road rage. An oldie but a goodie. It seems that pretty much anyone in Dubai who owns a car and drives got their license from a special offer on the back of a Weeties packet (Weetabix to the Brits) . I was involved in an incident only a week ago involving a blonde in a Jeep who had man hands. Yes, you read that right. Man hands – I noticed them because the silly bint was effectively curb crawling in front and to the right of my vehicle at about  minus 5 kmh. I leaned on my horn for about a minute but it appears that she was not only unable to drive, she also had issues with her hearing. This forced me to miss the traffic lights, bringing me to my next point –

– Traffic lights. A specific set of traffic lights (well, there’s a set of THREE in a row) on the relatively short Burj Boulevard near my house. I absolutely have to use this road on my way home from work to get to the apartment. There is no alternative. The RTA (who I have mentioned before) have inexplicably decided that there will be such a vast amount of cars coming in and out of the Dubai Mall at all times of the day (even 3 o’ clock in the morning when it’s closed) that each light cycle should take five minutes. Doesn’t seem like a long time does it? But it’s aeons for traffic lights, trust me. In addition, for this set of three lights on this road that is less than half a mile long, all of the lights are coordinated so if you miss one, you miss all three. Hence, it can take up to 15 minutes to go 500 yards. I could definitely get there faster walking on my hands and knees across broken glass

– Last minute changes to Bank Holidays. Yep, in DXB, someone can just suddenly decide that what would normally be a public holiday (in this case, the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday – Peace Be Upon Him). For as long as anyone can remember, this auspicious day has fallen on the 9th March. Not this year folks, apparently, it’s now going to be on Saturday the 7th March. A weekend! Thanks Ministry of Labour – that’s very generous of you!

– The lack of pavements for pedestrians. It’s no wonder people are obese, there’s nowhere to walk outside without risking your life. All the skinny people have been mown down by bad drivers. Getting out of the car in the morning and walking 20 metres my place of work brings a whole new and exciting dimension to my morning commute

– The lifts in my building. Why oh why, in a bank of three lifts, two of which are chillin’ their boots on the ground floor, do I have to wait for the third lift to descend from the penthouse on the 37th floor to come and get me from the basement – just two floors below the ground floor? Anyone know a lift engineer that can explain this to me?

Now, I think we all know these things would irritate me anyway, ciggies or not, but I have nearly burst blood vessels in my forehead this last fortnight over many petty irritations such as these. I guess it’s better than bursting arteries and having a heart attack though, right?

Send me good vibes to be strong, people – this sure is difficult.

Flickster. x

Update: Sunday 8th March. Had a bit of a mishap at the weekend – I smoked two cigarettes at a very boozy brunch. I know – shame on me – weak person! They did taste horrible though, and I haven’t had any since then, does that count? 😦

Banging on about the weather

I doubt that anyone is really going to feel any sympathy for me at this point, given that I live in Dubai, but the weather the last week or so has been cr*ppy – wind, rain, cold. We’ve even recently had some quite spectacular electrical storms lasting hours with massive thunderclouds that were miles and miles long. Our apartment, whilst right next to the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world) is facing the wrong way so we can’t actually see it. Bods in the tower opposite can though, and I was woken from a dead sleep the other night by sounds of rolling tympany drum thunder and excited whooping, carried over the sound of howling wind. Opening our bedroom curtains a crack (just like the latent curtain-twitcher I really am!) I could see drunk people on a balcony in the tower opposite smoking fags and yelling and pointing in the direction of the Burj. It must have been hit by lightning!

Sadly, I myself, being clad only in my birthday suit, marooned 34 floors high and facing the wrong way, could only imagine how spectacular the sight. Luckily, someone else saw it while driving down the Sheikh Zayed Road and felt that, safety be damned, they would video this amazing phenomenon on their mobile phone – and gawd bless t’internet YOU can now view the sight that I was so viciously denied that night by the architects of Southridge 6.

According to that wag Oscar Wilde, Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative. I’m really scraping the bottom of the tower this week then, eh folks?

Flickster. xx

The great furniture swindle of 2008

So we received our furniture delivery from home on Sunday which was very exciting. In principle only though, because we are trying to fit the contents of a two-bed Victorian terrace garden flat into an ultra modern one-bed high rise apartment with a balcony.

Being the careful planners that we are (ha!), PD and I decided before we left that we would probably have to store some of our stuff in Dubai anyway. So we took the option with our removalists to be able to specify which boxes should be delivered to us and which stored. It seemed like a good idea at the time, because storage in Dubai (sorry, in Sharjah) is a lot cheaper than Big Yellow Storage or whomever in London, and at least we could go and visit the storage facility and take things out or put them back.

So far, so organised, except that the removalists, when filling in their sheets of inventory for each box, were a bit too brief in their descriptions. Thus, the contents of 2,000 cubic feet (or, as it rather quaintly says on the form, ‘cuft’) of stuff translated to about 50 boxes are described simply as, ‘clothes’ or ‘kitchen stuff’ or, ‘books and clothes’ or ‘ornaments’ – you get my drift. The dawning realisation that we had to effectively guess what was really in each box before stipulating to the removalists which ones were to be delivered effected a sort of procrastinating fug over me and my dear husband. As such, by the time the deadline loomed for submission (ie. the phone call telling us the 2,000 cuft had cleared customs) any clear memory of exactly what was where had somewhat faded.

Sunday – which shall now be known as ‘lucky-dip day’ or perhaps, ‘F&P’s-turkeys-come-home-to-roost day’ – saw about 1,000 worth of the 2,000 cuft delivered to the apartment. PD, who works from home (lucky sod), was there to take the delivery while I was toiling away at the office feeling shattered. I arrived home to what can only be described as utter and complete carnage.

I fail to understand exactly why it is that we decided to ship, let alone KEEP the following useless items:

• About 20 spent candle ‘stubs’ of various grades and colours
• Two corroded plastic trestles from Homebase which are apparently used for sawing pieces of wood
• Some screw in lightbulbs for the kitchen in the London flat that are not even standard size
• A remote control for a stereo that we no longer own
• A full and unopened box of Kleenex tissues
• A couple of cr*ppy old handbags of mine with broken straps that I wouldn’t be caught dead using
• A cornucopia of cat toys that were rejected in the first instance back in London. These can be added to the expensive ‘activity centre’ we bought in Dubai which is also ignored and now serves as a kitsch stand for the iPod docking station
• A million books

None of the bits I really wanted were in there, except perhaps for a framed wedding picture that managed to somehow miraculously find its way into a box marked ‘clothes’. The other nasty discovery we made was just how filthy and shabby our cream Ikea sofa is, and how disgustingly dirty our two cream deep pile rugs are. It seems that not only were we living in a ‘charming’ Victorian terraced flat, we were also existing like moles in the half dark. I also now HATE our bedside tables, and if I never saw another rammekin again I would not be unduly distressed.

*Now here is where I take almost full and entire responsibility for vehemently insisting that we pack everything and sort it out later.*

There you go, PD – I’ve admitted it!

If you are planning to move abroad, then know this: be ruthless with all your belongings, throw out EVERYTHING you don’t want and ALL you’re not sure of. Otherwise, when the container arrives weeks later you’ll be stuck sorting through stuff you forgot you ever owned and remember you never cared about. Here endeth the lesson.

Flickster. x

Rave is the new rant

Apologies for the delayed post.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that it is much easier to rant and rave on the negatives, rather than wax lyrical on the positives. Things are greatly improved and I really feel as if I have turned a corner. My new challenge is to convey everything that’s happening with a positive spin. PD kindly pointed out to me the other night that my blogs have seemingly spiraled into a bit of a whine-y, moany, complaining tone – something I’m not particularly pleased about – the way I’m coming across that is, not the fact that my husband can say these things to me!

So, in light of this new leaf attitude, I’m now going to tell you all about the good stuff that’s been going on.

My residence visa finally came through last Wednesday, hurrah! This means that I have been able to get paid into my bank account, get broadband, home phone and cable TV. I can get a postal address that is not via work to our new apartment building and I can also buy a car instead of relying on rental.

On the subject of transport, the current vehicle in use is a white Toyota Rav 4. I’m not that impressed with it to be honest, but maybe that’s because I had my heart set on a sedan or saloon. I also managed to bump it against a bollard the second day we had it. I know – AGAIN! Despite the requisite large spare tyre on the back window, there is still a dent! PD has now decreed that our new car needs to be a 4WD with parking sensors as I have to mount the pavement on a daily basis in order to exit the sandpit. 😦

Our new apartment is lovely – it has an amazing view over Dubai Old Town (which is not old at all – it’s very new – it’s just built to look aged), the Sheikh Zayed and Al Khail Roads (good for spotting which route to take in the morning as in where’s the least congested) and some very fetching building sites and cranes. Given that it is on the 34th floor – and I’ve managed to curtail any vertiginous notions of throwing myself off the balcony – at night time when the lights come on it really is very pretty, like strings of Christmas lights trailing into the distance. At this point in time, our furniture consists of four bean bags borrowed from the office (branded What’s On and Campaign magazines), a wicker sun lounger bought for the balcony and a very large bed. This means that we are able to jog freely around the apartment whooping and delighting at the echoes whilst avoiding stubbing our toes on the edges of the bed. Our furniture is arriving shortly – PD has been informed that the container ship has arrived at the port, but it is still waiting for a berth. Thus, the TV, sofa, the entire contents of the kitchen and about a million books are currently floating somewhere on the Persian Gulf. In some ways, living without much stuff has been pretty liberating – I’m sure that the apartment won’t feel so spacious once the container finally gets cleared!

The Dubai Mall opens tomorrow and I for one cannot wait. It’s only about five minutes walk from the apartment. Fingers crossed they sort out the traffic, which has been hell on earth…wait, no Flickster, no ranting allowed remember? Soz… Anyway, the best and most exciting thing about it is that nearly half an entire floor of the mall will be devoted to a Waitrose/John Lewis combo – yip yip yippdedee – it’s my favourite supermarket, hands down. I can almost taste it’s special own brand lemon curd now…

I promise to post some pictures soon – there seems to be something wrong with our new camera in that every time you take a picture it ends up with stripes across it! Any ideas anyone?

Keep it real, peeps.

Flickster. x

Snapshot on today – 13 Oct 08

Today I am mostly loving: the fact we have found a new apartment! Yes! We move in on the 24th of October. My nesting instinct can now be revived! More news and pics soon…

…And that my visa is imminent – I had my ‘medical’ today and blood test (urgh) – full post on this experience to come later in the week

Today I am absolutely hating: the fact that I bumped the hire car AGAIN (I cracked a tail light this time and the vertical dent is huge). It’s parking in the sandpit – I hate hate hate it!!!

…And the fact that my whole work week is chocka with meetings – which means I have no time to do any of the work that the meetings themselves create