And so - here we are, another anniversary (11 years today) and another Christmas and this time in a strange and foreign land (!!) away from everyone we know and love ?!!

I don't really have much to report - life goes on very much as usual except for the excitement of kicking out the cheating, lying, lazy tart I called a house-keeper! I spent 10 months arguing with friends about how we should treat our maids - only to have it all kicked back in my face and being proven wrong once again! The more you give, the more they want and the more they disrespect - so I don't think I'll want another live-in again. My spare guest room with the kingsize double bed can remain empty rather than enjoyed by someone who's used to sleeping on a pallet on a floor of a 5 foot square room!

Onwards and Upwards ............ still waiting for some representative of the Bridal Show to call me regarding the humongous show in March; perhaps I will invest in a stall and start showing off my work. In the meantime I'm really enjoying making my Christmas ornaments for my beloved tree which is looking superb this year, I must say.

Have located the Swarovski agents in Dubai finally who are a terrific bunch of people and whose shop makes me drool just thinking of it. They have the most amazing selection of crystals I have ever seen and they are very helpful and obliging so hopefully, once I start the ball rolling, I can just buy things direct instead of having to wait weeks and weeks for the stuff to arrive.

I'm going to enclose a couple of photos of the majlis, our proper guest bedroom, for you all to enjoy !! It's already booked for a week in February and it looks like it's going to be a real crowd puller !

I will be attempting to call my friends during the next few days to wish everyone a very happy christmas. If you don't hear from me, then it would mean that the voip has been blocked again and I was unable to get through! I will not be calling by phone because I would become bankrupt in about 15 minutes - too, too expensive to call from here.

So here's to all of you who bother to read this - we wish you a truly happy christmas and a wonderfully prosperous new year. If any of you want to see the Middle East, we now have TWO spare bedrooms going cheap (!!) and all of you are welcome for your holidays!

Dazzit - over and out for today!

Yo There,

Well for various reasons, and time flying by, I seem to have lost 5 weeks of blogging and I'm damned if I can remember all the stuff that's kept me so busy!

I know I spent a good 2 weeks creating a spare bedroom unlike any other spare bedroom I've ever had - and this all because mummy and her friend, Joyce, came for a 2-week visit and we wanted to make sure they enjoy lying in and relaxing.

So my friend Karen and I decided to create a majlis made with 23 saris to form a sort-of tent. Needless to say none of it came easy - even when we thought we had it down to a T. Once we started putting the saris up, we realised that all the chiffon was so transparent, that all the colours were getting lost! So down it all goes, out we go into town and returned with 62 metres of black taffetta which we proceeded to nail to the walls. We then started hanging the saris again - and it worked a treat. Good, clever, artistic Karen decided to paint a mural too which she did really beautifully though we are still to put in the camel's arse through the doorway :-)

The room was ready just in time and mummy and Joyce arrived on the 18th November when we duly went to pick them up in Dubai. I don't think there's any reason to go into how we spent the days - shop, shop and more shopping till they shopped some more and we dropped !! I think they had a good time though they weren't particularly keen on the 7-hour journey back home.

In the meantime, my Christmas tree has finally gone up - photos will be posted soon - and my beloved ornaments and crystal stars are finally hanging proudly from my gorgeous wrought iron tree. I couldn't use a normal tree cos the weight of the ornaments kept pulling the branches down and I broke a couple before I decided it HAS TO GO. I searched high and low for a dead tree - those of you in Malta know what I usually have in the hallway - but can yhou find a dead tree around here? Can you hell!

Let's see what else happened - we have been given a gorgeous, lovely, little ring-necked parakeet called Chilli who - as always - has fallen in love with Pete and kisses in what sounds like a video game scream! He goes on anyone and everyone and I even took him out in the car this morning because he just loves being with people. He has bonded quite well with Pepper though Pepper still doesn't know quite what to do with himself. So our family which was supposed to remain small, seems to be growing very slowly but surely - we will only be 100% happy when we have Smooch here.

This week was very, very exciting for me - I was talking to a friend of mine who is the Executive Housekeeper for the biggest, poshest, loveliest hotel in the UAE and she said they were hosting the President and all the Heads of the Emirates to celebrate 35 years of independence. In the middle of the discussion, she said wouldn't it be wonderful if I could create something in crystal to put on the table and we played about with some ideas till we came up with the UAE flag. Keep in mind this was 4 days before the banquet and anniversary! I came home still chewing on the idea and realised I didn't even have the 4 colours in stock and I haven't yet met the agents for Swarovski here. Anyway, took the bull by the horn and called the agents in Dubai who were delighted to oblige and who couriered 12,000 crystals to me by 7 o'clock that same night.

In the meantime, I had decided to start beading a small flag as a sample to see how the stitch I had in mind would work and by 9 o'clock I had a sample ready. So I called my friend who asked me to go immediately with it so that we could show it to Mr Massoud, the General Manager of the Emirates Palace. He loved the idea, loved the sample but immediately said that it can't be done - the time was too short ! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I came home, went to bed, woke up and was at my desk at 8 a.m. and beaded non-stop (I promise non-stop) till 1 a.m. - that is 17 hours on the Wednesday. On Thursday again was at my desk at 8 a.m. - mummy & Joyce were leaving at 3:30 in the morning of Friday so we all had to stay up anyway. A couple of our friends took them out for us since it was their last day and I couldn't move out of the room even! So I beaded ............ and beaded ....... and beaded. Kissed them off goodbye at 3:15 Friday morning, came back to my desk and continued beading till 5 a.m.

Finally, 43 hours out of beading later - my wonderful, crystal UAE flag was done. Pete called to ask what time we should deliver it to the hotel - remember this was the day BEFORE the actual celebration and we were asked to go for lunch when we presented the flag to Mr Massoud and my good friend Charmaine. They loved it and said they would be sure to put it either next to the 40 foot cake or on the President's table..... WOW !

In actual fact, the biggest surprise and honour of all came yesterday when I was told that the flag had been put in a beautiful presentation box and presented to HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, President of the United Arab Emirates as a gift from the Emirates Palace Hotel....... and it was made by little me :-)

My first sari - a night to remember! And a totally new and liberating experience! I wore this sari to a party at Karen & Dale's on Thursday night. It was a night of compliments like I have never had before. Pete thought I looked totally wonderful - he loves my new evolving Middle Eastern wardrobe; he thinks this is totally my style and he loves it. I wore a Salwar Khamis to the Hilton the other day too and that felt like a million $ !

Renuka took great pleasure in wrapping, pulling, pleating, tightening and pinning 21 feet of material round me an hour before we went to the party and at the end of all the tugging, I felt like a queen. I don't think I ever want to wear anything else. The joy of all that chiffon, the cascading material around me, although hot, made me feel the most feminine I have ever felt. This is my first sari ............. and definitely not the last.

Quick hello - Really busy right now; too many Iftar parties and waaaaay too much beading to do in these last few days before Eid. So, just so you don't get bored, here's something addictive to occupy your time:

Happy Halloween

Off to Oman on Tuesday next week but I'm bound to post some stuff here before then! So watch this space ............. j xx

Wow - My Eid Mubarak card is now beaded..... I still have to pretty up the edges by beading some other stuff around it. I must say I'm very pleased with the result after 30 hours of beading using 7,740 beads and 128 rows of pattern to decipher.

Ho Hum now I have to start the 2nd one - identical but reversed colours so bye for now. Hope to catch you soon.

Meet Babe, a stray and beautiful unwanted bitch who's living on the doorstep of friends of ours till we find her a home. At this time of year, lots of dogs are thrown out into the streets for some reason and around Khalifa City and Sas Al Nakhl we are seeing more and more dogs running around or dead by the side of the road.

If you would like to adopt this beautiful blue-eyed babe, please call or email me. She is a medium size, short-haired, cream-coloured bitch with blue eyes. She's always smiling and happy and waggles her tail at every little move you make towards her. Very friendly with other dogs and children. Please help! I wish I could keep her but with my female being 11 years old, it's impossible as she won't tolerate a new bitch in the house. I would think she's no older than a year.

Is there anyone out there who'd like to meet Babe?

Update re Abu Dhabi Divas; 24 hours after opening the chat rooms we've got :

23 New Members - 115 New Messages

Is this cool or what ??

Keep on joining girls & boys; it's rocking in our room
Press this button - now:

Elle - You ask a lot of questions which I can't answer cos I don't have your address!!! So if you want to keep yourself anonymous, just join my Chat Rooms - Abu Dhabi Divas and you can ask away !! The link in on the right of this page.

Ciao !

Hi All,

Today I've had some fun creating a new chat room called The Abu Dhabi Divas. If you Abu Dhabi ladies want to join us in some fun, feel free.

Click to join abudhabi_divas

This chat room is meant to be a light-hearted way of sharing our lives in this city, to help all the newbies arriving daily to find their feet, not to mention everything they need to set up a new home/school/community etc. and to just chill out by sharing good and bad experiences in our day to day lives. So visit often, chill out and let's rock and roll.

Last night, I was honoured and very touched to be invited to share in Iftar - the breaking of the fast Muslims are having daily during the Holy month of Ramadan. It was the first opportunity I had to meet local ladies and, I must admit, I was a little nervous before I went because I haven't enough knowledge of their etiquette and traditions. I knew I would be mortified if I caused offence without meaning to, so I contacted a new friend who is married to a local gentleman to guide me. And thank you Charley - you gave me perfect advice for all through the evening.

I will not go through details of the evening here - I feel these ladies like their privacy and I will respect that all the way.

However, I feel sure they would be happy to know that I have never, ever, anywhere in the world met such a wonderful, gentle, loving, generous crowd of ladies before in my life. I feel special just for being with them and their wanting me to stay longer and longer through the evening and half the night! And all the hugs and kisses they gave me before they let me go touched my heart so much - I had tears in my eyes because I was so afraid that I won't see them again.

Warda, Aisha, Asma, Sheikha and all your gorgeous, wonderful sisters and aunts (I'll bring paper and pen next time to write down all the names) - you are delightful and warm and I love you all so very much. I hope to see you again soon - in an abbaya and burqa and speaking broken Arabic next time inshallah!

May Allah be with you always - jacky xx

What a super surprise we had tonight. A lady called Jo called to ask me whether I still wanted to introduce my giant girls to her giant boy tortoise. I knew that my good friends, Caroline & John had met a lady at a party who knew of someone who had a boy tortoise.... Caro had told me she'd given the lady my phone number some days ago. So I was hoping that the boy's mummy would like the idea of introducing him to my girls and give him a good time!! This great looking, handsome hunk of a boy is called, aptly enough, Attila and as you can see below, he's the right size for our Persephone!

Thank You Caroline, John and of course Jo

Top Photo - Attila is on the left

Bottom photo - Attila on the right

As you can see, Persephone didn't really show too much interest, but then nor did Attila. He was more excited at being on a real life lawn with grass than any silly girl, so he just chilled out next to her and nibbled at her food. We have this wonderful boy for a couple of weeks when he will be returned to his parents when the honeymoon is over. He will hopefully keep joining us every now and then for a fortnight's sabatical with his lady love. Watch this space ........

This one is for the ladies of Abu Dhabi:

It seems that I'm not the only one who's really cheesed off at what has been happening on the forum in the last few days. By deleting threads which ask fair, polite, relevant questions, the moderators are showing a great deal of disrespect to us, the forum members who, at the end of the day, MAKE their forum work. We are the forum ............ look at how many people posted a year ago - about 10? We have made this work so surely we are entitled to be treated fairly.

Some of the ladies who think my thread called Over & Out (posted yesterday) was unfairly removed when some of you asked questions are now boycotting the forum. This is simply to prove that the Editor and Moderators need to start a proper debate online for everyone to see and not just delete us when they can't answer us - or when they prefer to answer questions in a private email like they did to Eshta-Jayne this morning.

I have no idea why it was decided to remove my thread - it was not controversial - it was the truth! It had no profanity in it nor did it insult anyone ........ in fact, the entire email which was sent to me was not quoted in all in entirety because it would have made the moderator look like a fool and I wanted to save her face.

I would be happy to post a new thread to start a debate with the moderator - it would be deleted for sure though, and I can't do this without everyone showing their unhappiness over this situation.

I said yesterday that I don't care whether I continue posting or not; however, I am not an error on a page to be deleted with no reason and I still stick to everything I said on the forum!

Anyone here who for some reason missed the last 2 days and wants to know about it, you can contact me on menhennet@gmail.com or call me on 508066974.

Thank you and watch this space ......... !
j x

This is the project I've been working on the last week. I usually keep a bouquet of flowers on the coffee table in the sitting room but Pete complains that you can't speak to anyone sitting opposite because the flowers are in the way :-)

So I came up with this arrangement for my lovely horn vase which my friend Ethel had given me for my birthday (or was it Christmas??!!). I used some lovely gold beads for this one and they were just the right shade to match the brass studs in the coffee table. I've just realised that if you click on each photo you get a larger copy of the image .... what am I? Stupid?? Duh!! Oh well, at least the shade of the beads shows up better if you do this!

I like it - that's a job well done and I'm very happy to see that I haven't lost my touch which is something I feared after so many months of not beading!

YAY - now I can relax whilst starting a brand new project and that's already in the making - another vase, so watch this space ..................but don't hold your breath cos this one is a time consuming project - tee hee!

Hello There,

I have finally fixed my lovely poppies which came all the way from home broken, missing bits and looking altogether straggly because a lovely parrot had her way with them and enjoyed tearing them apart!! Just like a child, she didn't break all of them apart (so that I could have thrown them away with an easy conscience!). No, she decided to tear one piece of each leaf and poppy so that most of it was standing but with missing beads; I quite remember going into the dining room only to find her sitting on the dining room table surrounded by red and green beads - she was having the time of her life too :-)

I have finally dismantled each petal and leaf, fixed them, added more to them and hey presto - one poppy arrangement is now finished....... I always sleep easier somehow when I know there's nothing pending on my desk. Now on to my current project .............. !

Oh Boy - Am I a happy camper or am I a happy camper today? My beloved Renuko is back after two months and she's like a bulldozer around the house. Already the terraces are clean, the poop is all scooped, the kitchen is tidy and it's only 09:45 and I'm still in my dressing gown - sheer blisssssss - I feel like a cat living in luxury :-)

(Where's my smily toolbar - can't find it! Actually can't find anything now I've downloaded the latest update for XP - why do they do this as if it doesn't take me long enough to get used to the one before - grrrrrrrrr!)

So yesterday Ramadan started - thought it wouldn't really effect me cos I hardly go out anyway ....... wrong! Had to go and buy some bedding, so off Pete and I go to the Mall, arriving at 15:05 only to be told that all the shops closed at 1500 - double grrrrrrrrrrr. Even worse is the fact that I couldn't smoke a cigarette in the car - bloody grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - that's my favourite place to light up!

Not much else to say really except we went to a great party on Thursday night and we all ended up singing to Pete's and Luba's guitar playing. Great going guys - next time it's here and we can have the piano too so start practicing new songs :-)

Pete's working shorter hours this month so he comes home at 1500 hours. Not that we can do much before 1900 when the shops and restaurants open and it's like a crazy festival then. I still have to go and buy that bloody bedding so I guess we'll head that way tonight - borrrring! Fancy Marks & Spencer's not having a bedding department - what a pain. Mind you I got a super outfit from Per Una yesterday - again!! Everytime I go in there for something, I go out without the something but with a Per Una Outfit - all MICHELLE'S fault too - she introduced me to the label last Christmas in Malta. Which is great because everytime I see them, I remember her :-)

I got a lovely email from Hamish Horse this week too which really cheered me up cos I miss him so much. He tells me he's now in new stables with 41 horses and he loves being the mascot of the stables. He's so obviously happy I'd love to see him in his new surroundings so NADYA - take the hint please !!

Dazzit for today - hopefully we'll be going away for a weekend now Renuko is here to babysit beasts so I'll have more to write about. In the meantime, I'm going to shower and happily come to my desk to bead. I've started a new project for the centre of my coffee table so watch this space for photos soon.

You dudes have a good one!

PS FOR ELLE - Who are you? I'm guessing you're in AD cos you said you want to see my Xmas things - can you email me at menhennet@gmail.com? When you post a comment I don't get any details!

j x