Another Christmas, welcome 2006 and entertaining dad

After Christmas with my sister and her kids my parents arrived in Dubai for two weeks. For a month beforehand mum was so excited about their trip our Jaki got a bit miffed; all mum talked about was her flight to Dubai on Boxing Day and how she couldn’t wait. Christmas is hard work for mum, all the build up, shopping, cleaning cooking etc. For years she’s been saying how she’d like to get away for Christmas but never has, and I don’t think she will as long as her dad’s still around, and may that be a long time! So the compromise was New Year with us in Dubai. We planned another Christmas lunch with them, though this one would be more Quebecois influenced. His nibs cooked tourtiere du lac st-jean, a meat pie to you and me; it could have fed half of Quebec it was so big! Though it was nice dad is even harder to feed than me and was less than impressed, respect to him though, he cleaned his plate. We opened yet more pressies; I think my family wanted to make up for me not being there by buying me lots of them. Not quite sure about the feather duster and rubber gloves they bought me though! We then spent a couple of days relaxing, before New Years Eve.


We’d decided on a quiet new years eve at home. Jo, her hubby Dave and their kids came around and camped in our garden, of course the kids thought this was great. Mum and I made a traditional Lancashire hot pot, a feature of most of my childhood new years, and we sat outside on the terrace watching the kids swim. By midnight the kids were fast asleep and the adults headed to the roof of our villa; there we’d have a great view of the Burj and its firework display. A cold bottle of bubbly was opened and as the fireworks lit the Arabian sky we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’, gave each other a kisses and hugs, and toasted the end of 2005 and the start of 2006. The Burj at night...

I was a bit worried that 2 weeks here and with no Megan and Macaulay to keep him busy, my dad would get a bit bored, and so I booked a night in Musandam. It would kill two birds with one stone; I needed to do a visa run and it would be a change of scenery for dad. So on January 2nd we headed to Oman. You’ve heard about Khasab before so I’ll not repeat myself, this time however we took the more scenic coast road so we could stop for lunch at the Al Hamra Fort hotel in Ras Al Khaimah. RAK as it’s known is another of the Emirates, much less developed than Dubai it has a sleepy quality that’s a great counterbalance to the hectic Dubai. We stopped for lunch at the 5 star resort which was designed as an Arabian Fort and has a beautiful beach, though it was a bit breezy in January! After lunch we headed to the Golden Tulip where we were spending the night.

Al Hamra Fort Hotel RAK

Once at the hotel we headed to bar for a bite to eat, a few beers and a game of darts. Mum’s not a bad player she used to play for a local pub team, dad’s ok, much better than his nibs and I, so we played doubles; me and dad against his nibs and mum. I’ve no idea who won, just that it was fun any very competitive (I’ll bet his nibs could tell you who won, he’s sooooo competitive). The next morning his nibs went diving, I’d decided to spend the morning with the folks on a Dhow cruising the Fiords. We had a great time chasing dolphins who appeared very happy to ‘play’ with the dhows, then stopped for an hour to snorkel. Mum stayed dry and laughed at me putting my wetsuit on, but I new the water would be a bit chilly, as proved by dad only spending 15 minutes in there before getting out. We met up with his nibs back at the hotel and took the more direct route back to Dubai.

Mum and Dad on the Dhow