Sunday, September 30, 2007

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!

...and blogger ate that post ... it disappeared into that big nothingness that's cyberspace. To recap: We got the fantastic news on Thursday evening that we got the house. The one with the decent landlord, the one with the baby palm trees and future grass!! We're obviously just a little excited about that. Don't know moving dates yet, but it will be around the end of October ... hhmmmm, gonna be interesting with guests here and all. Oh well, as they say, things always have a way of working out.

steak, cheese curls and beer
Someone asked me last week while remarking that the K-man has grown so much, what I feed him. I said: "steak, cheese curls and beer". I wasn't kidding about the beer LOL!!

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

house hunting chapter XLCMIVLMVIXCI

Gideon went to look at another house last night, just to keep the options open and you never know what you might find. Very nice apparently, brand new but too small. Oh well.

He then tells me this afternoon that he'll be meeting with our new landlord, one of house with garden fame, to set up the contract!! wwooohoooo!!! They need to discuss and finalise some finer points as well, like the gardener that comes once a week, from Dubai! Gideon said he'll just explain to him very nicely that it's really not necessary.

So, we're holding thumbs big time that all will be sorted soon. He also spoke to the HR manager at Alec already, explaining that we may have to get the cheque sooner so as to secure the villa, but that we'll still only be moving at the end of October and that the money is therefore not to be deducted any sooner. From previous dealings with most unprofessional HR department, we'll wait and see what happens or what doesn't happen. Anything is possible!

And yes, Diederik & Louise, if we can't move the moving date a week earlier or a week later, than the last week in October ... we'll you're moving with us!! But we'll do our best to not do it while you guys are here :)

Some other news that's for a change not ours. My dear friend Marinda had a baby girl on the 16th of September. Little Francesca weighed 2.6kg's and they're both doing just fine.




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That's all the news I have right now. Will keep you up to date with the moving and stuff.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

on house hunting and other such trivial matters ...

Gideon went to see a villa last night at 22:30, yes I said, 22:30, weird Ramadan business hours are still with us. Same design as here, 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, one kitchen outside and a lot of weird little storage rooms. The villa has potential, only problem, the majilis is divided and we won't get the bigger part, only the smaller part. Bummer, 'cause Nico (our lodger) can use that, but where do we go for a lounge / dining room?

Maji-WHAT I hear you ask, ok Arabic house design 101. I'll try to explain as best I can. Imagine an apartment building with 2 flats, one at the top, one at the bottom, both have 3 stupendously large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms top floor, 1 bathroom ground floor. And that's it, that's all that's in the main house. Now, outside in a "L" shape in front and to the side of the house are an assortment of rooms. Another ridiculously enormous room that's divvied up in 2, with a bathroom / shower in the middle, this room has a front door. This room is called a majilis. Then to the side of the main house is the kitchen and the maids room and some storage rooms.

The idea behind it, is that both men and women have a separate visit space for their guests, as men and women don't socialise together, much and when they do, there's all sorts of Islamic social customs and laws that need to be remembered. Therefore, we have a house that's got only bedrooms in the main house and the living areas are separate from the main house and these are also divided so that the men and women can visit without fear of violating the social code.

Now, what we've done is use the one room of the majilis as our living area, where the dinning room and lounge area is. The other part of the majilis is where Nico (our lodger) lives, yes, it's that big.

We stay on the top floor, with our guest room and a storage room at the bottom. Oh, what's also just a little bit important is that this particular house has a roof over the stoep area between the main house and the majilis/kitchen building, this is a little bit important for summer, as you can imagine it will be rather sheit to walk out in the 45C heat to the kitchen, suddenly you're not so sure you really want that cup of coffee that badly.

RIght, now that we've got the basics down. We're looking for a similar place, same area, within budget. Yesterday afternoon Gideon and Nico (our lodger) went to see a villa in a neighbour area, it's got possibility, only there's no roof over the stoep area and the rent is a bit high. So Gideon said to the agent that he must negotiate with the landlord, fix the roof thingy so it's closed up, keep the rent at the same price and we'll maybe take it.

The villa Gideon looked at last night may also have potential, but we'll only make it work if we absolutely have to. The estate agent, Mr. Abdullah is at least a very nice guy and he even had the key ready as well as his own car, no, these are not standard practise for local estate agents, I know, I know the mind boggles. So Gideon explains to him that he'll have to show me the villa first, because "we're Western, the wife will make the final decision", to which Mr. Abdullah answers: "Not only in western culture Mr. Gideon, everywhere!" I had to giggle.

Fast forward to this afternoon at 16:00. Gideon and Nico (our lodger) goes with a certain delinquent called Shams to view a villa. This is the same dude that showed us our current villa last year, but tried to make about 20,000 dirhams extra off us, luckily we have an honest landlord and when Shams told him the plan, he promptly turned round to Gideon and told him exactly what Shams proposed. For obvious reasons we didn't deal with him any further.

But I digress, so enter Shams and another villa in the same area we're in. I haven't seen it, but this is what I was told. It's exactly like ours, roof over stoep area, no walls to close it up though, but that's fixable. There's even a little bit of garden!!!!! Grass and small palm trees!!!!! Can we be this lucky? I certainly hope so, now we just need to co-ordinate legal docs and cheques. One snag, the landlord wants occupation on the 1st of October, which we won't do as it will mean that we have to pay double rent, here and there a total no-brainer. So now to convince the landlord that we'll definitely take it, but he must please accommodate us on the occupation date and try and get the cheque from Alec as soon as bloody possible. Oh, and the total bonus, it looks like there's the teensiest possibility that we'll get him to agree to a 3 year contract, DOUBLE YEAH!!!!

So in a nutshell, yes that WAS a nutshell, I didn't even use any pictures for illustration purposed, that's where we are at the moment. Now we play the waiting game and as I explained to one of my friends earlier today, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place and someone forgot the rock climbing equipment as well as the coolbox with the beers. :-)

I'll update as and when I know what's going to happen where, when and with whom

Sunday, September 23, 2007

on cyber friends

A bizarre topic at first glance ... but hear me out. I am a regular visitor to at least three online forums, common denominator: digital scrapbooking. Now even if it was just that, it would have been really cool, 'cause you get to talk to other people about the craft and share ideas and upload your lay-outs to the gallery and they all make really nice comments about it. All of this resulting in a general "feel-good" mood, this as you can imagine, is a most fortunate turn of events.

There are so much more though ... The chit-chat that happens is quite astounding! I'm sure none of us has a life beyond the internet and we do spend stupendous amounts behind our computer screens. Either online or in Photoshop or both, seeing that we're mostly girls, usually both as we can multi-task. You learn abbreviations like: LOL, which means Laugh out Loud, kwim which is know what I mean, ROTFL, which is roll on the floor laughing - a particular favourite of mine as I always picture the person saying it, actually on the floor, rolling around and doing some hysterical laugh, LOL!!!

But more than that, it's quite possible to build friendships that are as meaningful as "real-live" ones. You can't really pop over for a glass of wine or a braai, but as soon as something happens in their lives, we know about it. The greatest thing to me is how, as woman, we manage to convey a genuine sense of community and belonging, even online.

So here's to you, all my online friends ... may the laughter never stop. LOL!!! ROTFL!!!!


Saturday, September 22, 2007

right ... so, ok, um ... i have a blog now ...

I was bullied into this ... and you now get to put up with my musings, rantings and general disillusionments. This blog will now replace the newsletters ... I got tired of trying to collate all the thoughts into one almost-monthly email, so there.

Now, then ... a quick history lesson to those that don't know. If you do, sorry for you and scroll down to the latest pics of the K-man.


Gideon (that's the DH, also known as Gids, Ballas, and delinquent Blue Bull supporter) is employed here in Abu Dhabi by a company called Alec. He's in the construction business, they make pretty buildings. I, get to spend his money with total abandon, huge amounts of enthusiasm and complete disregard for the durability of the credit card. I'm also mom to the baby, that's the K-man (aka Kaydin, Superman, Squishy, vlooi, liefie, pudding, apie - it really depends on my mood), he's such a darling though, the most easy-going baby ever, and I will make no excuse for that statement, ask anybody that's met him, it's true. :-)

We have two furry children as well, Jackie & Lara, the Jack Russels, aka as the Jackies.

We are here for as long as it takes. Somedays we forget what "it" is, a drink or look out of the window usually is enough of a reality check. We'll be back in South Africa as soon as circumstances permit, but when this opportunity came along, we just couldn't say "no". We're WAY too curious and would not have been able to live with ourselves, if in 30 years from now, we had to ask "what if we went to the UAE?", now at least we'll be able to say "remember that time, when we lost our minds and went to parts unknown?"

Right, onto more pressing matters. We're still looking for a house. One of the estate agents called twice already to tell Gideon that he's got a villa, but he hasn't made an appointment yet ... ? The mind boggles. Gideon said he'll get on their cases tomorrow promptly ... I will update you all as soon as I know.

In the mean time ... went to the dunes on Friday, took the boy for a ride, he had fun. So relaxed on the bike, it's too cute!!

Right, that's me for now ...


































The pics of Kaydin trying to balance are (c) Chantel Schoeman and all actions used on the pics are by Natasha Whiteley