Happy Eid. The month of Ramadan has finished and the 3 day festival of Eid Al Fitr (Christmas is the nearest comparison I can think of) began on Monday. The actual date depends on when the moon is sighted by the 'Moon Spotting Committee' and this year has resulted in a 4 day holiday for public workers thanks to the seasonal generosity of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Plenty of people don't get any time off though and the water for the water cooler was delivered by Nestle as usual this morning.
Yesterday we celebrated by going to Dreamland in the northern Emirate of Umm Al Quwain. We went with Scott and Val who have 3 kids of similar age (Mhairi is in Lucy's class and they are inseparable - I barely saw them all day).
Dreamland is great. It must have been their busiest day of the year but there were still sun loungers to be had and the queues for food weren't too bad. It's not as chic as Wild Wadi, the water park at the Burj-al-Arab, but it was a fraction of the price and very friendly.
Afterwards, we went to the adjacent Barracuda hotel for an excellent Eid buffet. The hotel has a duty free booze warehouse (no liquor licence required) attached and it was absolutely heaving. There were lots of dishdashs and Indians stocking up on their duty free Johnny Walker at a fiver a bottle.
We returned to Dubai, weary but happy, at 10pm with kids content and hard fast asleep. I'm sure this would have been a far cry from most people's pre-conceived ideas of the Middle East - it could have been a day out at any good waterpark on the Med.
In other news, it looks like Janet has landed a part time job teaching at the kid's school. It couldn't be more convenient. I've had heat exhaustion (for the second time since arriving!) due to an excess of gardening, barbeque building and a couple of glasses of Merlot ('you must wear your hat when you go outside you pale skinned pansy!'). Oh, and I've entered the Dubai Marathon. OK, only the 10k part of it, but it's a start.
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