You can take the man out of Yorkshire ...

When you move in to a villa in this area a whole load of people start knocking at your door – ‘Sir, you want housemaid?’, ‘water?’, ‘gas?’, ‘DVDs?’, you name it). One of them was a gardener who offered to sort out the garden for 250 Dirhams (less than £40) per month. I agreed and initially was really impressed at how often he came and how much better the garden looked. Our conversations were brief – his English being limited to ‘open gate’, ‘water’ and ‘give money’.

He did a good job and the garden looks much better (although the water costs significantly more than him). It’s a simple garden and now there is nothing to do except cut the grass once a week and a tiny bit of weeding. He doesn’t do these things unless I ask him. Instead, he prefers to stand in the shade and hose down the patio. So I decided to sack him and do it myself. Janet found an advert for a cheap second hand lawn mower. I called the guy (who confirmed my theory about not being able to go anywhere in the world without meeting a scouser) and asked for directions. He lived on the other side of the city but we decided to go since it was opposite a place called Dragon Mart, which Janet had heard of as a cheap place to get bedding.

I got the mower (he lived in a huge mansion with pool and had paved the garden since the water bill was crippling) and then we queued to get into Dragon Mart.

Dubai is a city in love with shopping. Apparently there are 21 shopping malls. The latest one, the Mall of the Emirates (the one with the ski slope) makes the Trafford Centre look small and is the biggest outside the States. As if this wasn’t enough, as part of building the world’s tallest building, they’re also building the world’s largest shopping mall.

Dragon Mart is shaped liked one of those Chinese dragons that you see dancing down the street at Chinese new year. It is truly enormous – over a kilometre long – and apparently has over 3,000 shops. I famously used to think that eBay was the place to go to get anything you want, cheaply. I’ve changed my mind. This place is cheap, real cheap, and there is an amazing variety of things on sale (airport seats, 5ft diameter grinding wheels, quad bikes, electronics, clothes, shoes, ‘Gucci’ handbags, furniture, toys …). There must be 30 shops selling nothing but massage chairs. I’ve always coveted one of these after trying one priced at £3k at the Ideal Home Show. The Chinese equivalent here is £500 and I’m very, very tempted. Janet liked it and the kids had a great time trying them out.

This morning the gardener came and started watering the grass and patio – a complete waste of time in this heat and unnecessary since we have the automatic system. I went out, turned off the water, and explained that I would be doing the gardening from now on and that I wouldn’t need him to come back. He was upset (‘work not good?’) but I explained there wasn’t much to do and I would do it myself. He then turned the water back on and started to wash my car as if trying to prove that he did have a use. Again I stopped him. He called his boss who speaks English. He came round and I paid him off. He looked at me as if I was mad doing my own gardening (people round here just don’t). ‘You not got job already?’, he asked.