Snow

Whilst I wouldn't expect any sympathy from UK readers, it has been a bit chilly here recently. In fact, for the first time in living memory it snowed in the hills of the most northerly emirate, Ras Al Khaimah. Apparently the local dialect has no word for snow!

More amazingly, Ras Al Khaimah has plans to make Jebel Jais into an outdoor ski resort using some Australian technology that will allow you to ski in temperatures up to 35 degrees C.

Knees, bottom, shoulders

Max and Ben both play for the Dubai mini-Hurricanes Rugby Club in the U-4s and U-7s respectively. This week we were on the main pitch at The Sevens where the Rugby World Cup is due to be played soon. I took this video of Max strutting his stuff (on my phone so the quality isn't great) and learning how to fall over.

Dubai 10K

My third Dubai 10K today, at the unfathomably early time of 06.45, went better than the previous two. I plodded around in a slightly faster than expected time of 51 minutes. It was well organised and a good event to be part of. However, it was cold and heavy rain just prevented Haile Gebreselassie from breaking his own world record in the main event of the marathon. Mind you, he still picked up $250k for winning - not bad for 2 hours and 5 minutes of effort.

The best part of the day came later at 11, when it had warmed up a little, and I proudly ran round the 3K fun run with my 8 year old daughter Lucy.

Dusk at DOSC

Our new villa is only a couple of minutes from the beach at DOSC (Dubai Offshore Sailing Club). You can't swim at the moment because of illegal sewage dumping in the storm drains, but that's another story.

I took the kids down there this evening to kick a ball about and take a few pictures. There was a beautiful sunset over Atlantis but unfortunately the sun drops like a stone and it was almost gone before I could get the camera out.






We had a lovely time, kids just messing around in the sand, watching fishermen mend their nets and people walking and running at sunset. Simple pleasures are often the best.