Hello - A lot of you out there have been sending messages to see whether I am still alive or not! Well, this is a project that I worked on all of last week. As you can see, it's not exactly an easy project - it's a photo of Spencer which I converted to a bead pattern. I then ordered the beads, all 9,500 of them in 47 colours and once they got here, I dedicated 56 hours to bead this gorgeous picture - it's 6" x 5" and I presented it to Spencer's mummy, Caroline, on her arrival to Abu Dhabi from the States. She got here on her birthday and I managed to finish the portrait the day she arrived....... I think I started and finished the project in 5 days. Thanks to Pete, Karen and Renatta who fed me and kept the caffeine coming so that I could accomplish this project.

Other than all this, Cikka and Charles came to pick up Tina to take her home and I cried for a couple of days when she left - I adore puppies and I love having them around. The house is now too quiet without her after six weeks of lots of fun with them all playing around me.

Pete and I went to Dubai on Friday to meet our friends Nancy & Jim from Scotland. They went to Mauritius and then stopped over in Dubai for a quick visit. We had a super, if tiring day and it was really lovely to see them especially since I had not seen them for some 6 years.

I finally removed those bloody hair extensions and I hope to always remember the pain and discomfort they caused me for a couple of months, apart from the totally wasted Lm 550 of poor Pete's money! What a high maintenance, total waste of time they were - give me short hair anytime - thank you very much!

And now I'm dedicating these next few weeks to beading - Christmas is soon with us and I need to start beading seriously. Over and out :-) j x

Hello - Today I had a lovely, relaxing day (apart from the 300 Kms I drove) with my good friend Karen. We decided to drive to Al-Ain for the first coffee morning the ex-pat ladies there have started to host at the Hilton Hotel. We had already met Liesel and Taryn when they had come down for our coffee morning at Khalifa City, so we decided to take a day off and go visit them for a change. I love Al-Ain ! It is super to drive into the city - there are real-life sand-dunes along the way and in the distance, of course, there is a super mountain (which I told you about somewhere below in this blog!) It is lovely and green too and all in all a really lovely community. Now that I met some 23 ladies who live there, I think it's an even nicer community than I had first thought when I knew nobody there, if you know what I mean.

So we arrived at 10 a.m. (which meant I had to get up at 6 - aaaaaaaaaaaargh)!! I picked up Karen at 8.30, filled the car up with petrol, started on our way and discovered I had forgotten the map behind. Turn around, pick up map and off to Al-Ain - we were only late by about 20 minutes which wasn't too bad, really!! Chat, chat, chat, chat and so we came to lunchtime when the ladies asked us whether we'd like to join them for lunch - of course, sez 2 little piggies after gorging on sandwiches and cake and gallons of coffee all morning !! So lunch it was then our new friend, Birgit - the proud owner of Saluki dogs invited us to her house to introduce us to her dogs - yippee ........... off we went to meet 3 beautiful dogs and a cat. I tell you, animal lovers tend to migrate to each other automatically :-)

Set off at 4:15, refill car whose tank was half empty (never, ever set off on a long journey without a FULL car) to arrive home an hour (or so) later. All in all a great day. Karen is a super navigator - I would have got hopelessly lost since I don't know north from east - as I always say, North is in front of my nose - wherever I might be looking - tee hee!

We promised we'll be back to their next one - next time with a visit to the zoo to see the giants they have there. Today that had been the original plan but the zoo is being refurbished :-(

Now it's 18:52 ............... dinner is not even thought of let alone cooked; Pete is out for his nightly walk and I really, really need to go feed, 4-footed friends and sort out something for the 2-footed one too :-) I'm not hungry after the huge tortellini plate I was eating at 2 o'clock - chuckle !!

Thanks again girls - a most enjoyable day! Tomorrow and the next 8 days - I BEAD my new project which is on a very, very tight deadline....... More about this one later.

Have a good one
x

This is a BY SPECIAL REQUEST PHOTO for the ladies of Al-Ain.

Here he is - one of the special loves of my life. Hamish, the mini shetland pony who came into our lives when he was 5 months old and thought he was a dog all through the 2 years he lived with us.

As you can see, he realised I was his mummy and he would do anything to show me how much he loved me (or in this case, the polo mints I am hiding in my hand!!) Hamish is now with my good friends Nadia and Larry in their stables. His best friend is Bubbles (another shetland) and they have the run of the place so they can visit their friends the BIG horses all day long. Isn't he soppy?!

Oh boy, what a week it's been ! After a great time with our friends, Dale & Karen filming the little tortoise, Flossy playing and chasing Tina all over the yard and lawn, tragedy struck again last week. The day after all this playing, I went out in the morning to check on the giants only to find Flossy dead in the sun and I JUST COULDN'T BELIEVE IT. I'm starting to feel I'm jinxed where tortoises are concerned. The more I love them, the less I can enjoy them and things happen when and how I least expect. I had left a plastic basin outside just under the edge of the lawn - this is used to soak the giants so that they can drink. Of all things for Flossy to do, she managed to jump over the step surrounding the lawn, into the basin where she was then stuck cos she couldn't climb out. I found her cooked in this bloody heat and I was so f*^%ing upset and angry. There's hundreds of metres where she could go and she had to jump out into a 12" space where the basin was..... of all bloody things to happen - I swear, I still can't believe the things that happen to my tortoises. Now I'm so paranoid, I keep going out to check on the giants - I mean like every bloody hour and I can't concentrate on anything cos I worry so much about them. I wish they could be happy living in the house like Hercules used to in Malta.

Then to top it all off, yesterday Pete called to tell me that Spencer had passed on the night before and I just sat here and cried all day. We were actually at Paul's house the night Spencer died and we hadn't seen him because Paul said he had left the dog upstairs because he had appeared a little tired and stressed in the afternoon. And then when we left and Paul went to bed, he found him still warm but asleep for ever and Oh God, we're all so upset. Poor Caroline is finally coming in a couple of weeks and of course she's devastated that her baby died before she could see him. We've enjoyed having Spencer so much - he became part of our family these last few months and we're going to miss him so much - especially Kyo who had made him his best buddy in the whole wide world.

Isn't life a bitch? One minute there's something in your life, the next it's bloody gone! I wish I could lock Pete and the pets up to keep them with me all the time - I don't want to waste any time being without them in case they disappear just like Hercules, Spencer and Flossy have done - all in a few weeks. Unbelieveable!

This is our good friend Caroline who, together with her two boys, are joining John, her husband in Abu Dhabi tomorrow - finally She went to see Smooch in Zebbug yesterday to be able to send me photos of her and to see for herself what I'm always crying about! I think she now agrees that I have every reason to cry and pine for my baby - she was pretty impressed by Smooch and by how happy she is and how Johann and his gang dote on her!! We had no doubt that we were leaving her in good hands, but boy, did I cry for hours when I saw the photos - I bawled my bloody eyes out Isn't she as lovely as ever though? Caroline's and my mission is to start attacking the system to see how we're going to get Smooch to join us here asap!

Persephone eating her favourite broccoli ! What a messy eater!!

Meet our girls - PERSEPHONE & OPHELIA. Our beloved Persephone is back and this time she came with a friend. We are so delighted to have her again. And you know the nicest thing about this return? She remembered us and the garden and went back to her old hideaway straightaway :-) She is so adorable, I'm crazy about her. Ophelia is a much younger girl who is a lovely, friendly soul. She's also growing very rapidly this year, Ellen told us, so before long we will be back to having 2 gentle giants in the garden once again.

Tina had the greatest time with the tortoises who are, of course, bigger than she is :-)

Kyo - the most beautiful shepherd in the entire world . No need for more words!

This is my friend Renatta with Nemxa while Persephone watches at the side. Today we had a great day. Persephone & Ophelia arrived to a great welcome from all of us here at Nr.2

This is the street where we live; our house is the one on the right with the skips in front of it. You can just about see Betsy car parked there too! It is very hot out there during the day so Pete took the photos last night!

My God! Do you see the time I'm sitting here? Can anyone believe it? Tina decided that she needed to pee at 5:45 this morning, so silly muggins here took her out to the garden with Louise and Spencer and we had a good game of ball with Kyo. Nemxa is the clever one - she's still asleep on the bed with Pete :-)

It was nice and cool in the front yard so I decided to hose it all down from the sand because today is a very exciting day - PERSEPHONE IS COMING HOME with her sister! Yes, Ellen is bringing them down this morning and I'm so excited to have gentle giants around me again!! Which is why I didn't go back to bed - I'm bouncing up and down with excitement and I can't wait for the phone to ring!! That would be Ellen asking for directions to our house - woo hoo what fun I shall have with them today!

Last night we went to some friends for drinks - they live round the corner from us in the most amazing house I fell in love with. They are Americans - Dale is a Pilot with Etihad Airlines and Karen is a crazy artist like me. They've just come back from a weekend in Indonesia where Karen spent hours choosing sarongs and fabrics. She brought me back some gorgeous sarongs and a sari which I have been wanting desperately for ages. I can't wait to wear them! Karen is planning on using her drop dead beautiful fabrics to make up a bedouin tent in one of her spare rooms ...........I can't wait to see that cos I've been thinking of doing one here too. Thing is, we've been in some of these rooms in a variety of places and all those carpets and fabrics, surprisingly, make the room appear so much cooler than the rest of the house. It's like being in a humongous cocoon; mmmmmm imagine the decandent feeling lying on cushions in a bedouin tent - I like the idea more and more!

I'm coming to the end of my 12th patch for my wall hanging and it looks pretty good. I have to learn how to quilt next when it's time to put it all together but I have no idea how many more patches I'm going to make for it. Perhaps I shall just leave it like this. The one I'm working on is coming out pretty - black and gold Arabic caligraphy - I think it's only right to put in an Allah Hoo Akbar in the middle of the wall hanging; it sure has a pretty design when it's written. Maybe I was a Bedouin in a previous life - I love everything about this place though I think it's been spoilt with modernity now. We're planning on visiting Oman soon where it's much more unspoilt - I know I shall love it better there. Oh and I also found out that in Al Ain there's a man who will take us out for an hour's ride on camels - but this will have to wait ghax it's so damned hot now, we would die if we were to stay in the heat for more than a few minutes!

So back to my desk for now; I'm sure I will be writing more today and possibly take photos of my giants to show you guys. In the meantime, have a good one!

And the one you've all been waiting for ....... Woo Woo ....... Pete and I at the beautiful Madinat Jumeira in Dubai. You can see the Burj Dubai in the background. This is one of my favourite places and we make it a point to go for lunch there whenever we're in Dubai. Ejja chicklet - another weekend when you come back? Maybe we'll deliver Tina and stay :-))

This is the gorgeous Spencer, Kyo's old buddy who's now fallen in love with Tina :-) Kyo is pissed this morning; Spencer is ignoring him and actually sleeping next to Tina now by my feet. As you can see, we're having loads of fun today and will try and take photos of all 5 dogs together - which will be difficult, but I'm going to try just for the hell of it! We're having a great weekend with these guys

Meet Louisa, our favourite Pekingese who's visiting us for the weekend again :-) Louise and Spencer, her brother who's a Lhasa Apso and Kyo's best friend, lived with us for a few months and we really miss them now. So they come for weekends while their daddy is doing his thing! Isn't she a pretty girl?

This is the baby Tina - she who keeps us all amused all day; sleeps round my head at night and wakes up full of beans at SIX in the morning, ready to play - aaaargh!!

Wow !! I actually managed to download a picture finally - all Debbie's fault ta :-)

Mela lots of responses about my blog which shows that all our friends like to, if not keep in touch, see what we're up to in this neck of the woods! Today I've been in all day so really nothing to say except I finished one patch and starting another. I've spent most of the afternoon attempting to design a pattern in Arabic caligraphy so watch this space. I now have 11 patches ready for the wall-hanging so it's moving along ........... slowly ......... but moving nevertheless.

A month ago I started watching an HBO series on DVD called Six Feet Under. I had borrowed the first 2 seasons - some 26 episodes and they were very riveting. Pete then discovered that there are 3 more seasons so we managed to find 3 and 4 and still looking for 5. I don't think you guys will ever see it on TV (not the ideal for Maltese TV!!) but it is an amazing serial and everybody who sees it becomes part of a cult of followers of Six Feet Under. Hence, for the first time in 5 years, I sit in front of TV to watch without beading at the same time - this has never happened - I always bead!!

Nemxa is none the worse for her anaethetic yesterday and although the vet put on one of those ghastly, inhumane victorian collars round her neck to wear for 5 days, I'm afraid I took it off as soon as we got home cos she couldn't even drink with that horrid thing, and told her she must NOT scratch her nose otherwise it comes back on. Well, she's been good as gold and her stitches are still in place. She's such an old girl, poor thing, all she wants to do is sleep - a bit like me in fact! I have to go back to the vet on Sunday - must remember what day it is - I didn't even know tomorrow is the weekend

This is one of my latest patches for the wall-hanging I'm working on. I love camels so I decided to make one in beads as a reminder of the Middle East :-) Isn't he cute? The picture is from my favourite calendar which consists of 12 camels - all taken from original paintings by Fay Lawson. I would love to meet her to show her my version of her camel :-) He's my favourite one!!

A quickie tonight ghax I'm knackered! Took Nemxa to the vet at 08:15 this a.m. and had to leave her there for the tests. Then, since I had just driven 30 kms to the city, I went to Spinney's shopping for the weekly foodstuffs but first I went to the coffeeshop and played tourist :-) Last Sunday's papers, a large cappuccino and people drifting in and out started the session well. Then downstairs for the trolley loads of veggies etc and finally got home at 12:30 by which time the temperature had reached 49 degrees!

Came into the house, started unpacking shopping when they called me from the vets to tell me I can pick up Nemxa ............... aaaaaargh! I had actually asked them to call me when she was finished so that I could wait around for her. So I said I would leave in 20 minutes or so which would have been too late ghax they close for siesta between 1300 and 1500. At the end I went for her at 15:15 - she had to wear the lampshade collar for 5 days suppost - in fact, I removed it for her ghax she couldn't even get to the water poor thing. Blood tests are all good but we have to wait 10 days for the biopsy results which were couriered to UK today.

Pete brought home a lovely surprise for me - I received my very first parcel from Malta. A lovely piece of wedding cake and perlini - yummy! The best part was the CD with 195 wedding photos which Pete and I are drooling over. I think this is making Pete feel a little homesick!!! Me? No way - he's the one who feels more at home in Malta than I ever did :-)

Still trying to get around getting Smooch here - today I was told that they've lifted the ban in Oman so we're checking this out. Going to the vet always does this to me - Chloe and Ivan sit perched on their tree, nuzzling each other and make me want to cry. To top it all off, Chloe started making kissy noises and meowing just like Smooch does. Shit!

Dazzit - still trying to post pics in this blog but they don't appear for some reason. We're also off Skype right now - we reckon that Etisalat Telecommunications have blocked it for everyone so that's the end of telephone calls :-( Oh and just today the internet is really slow - in fact, Pete is swearing ghax he can't even go into my blog from his desk!! Ajma what a world we live in.
in!

tata
j x

Oh Boy - totally mega pissed off today and I shall go into the reasons cos I don't see why I shouldn't piss everyone else off too :-( I get emails all the time from a variety of people complaining that I'm not ringing/writing/speaking to them - like I have zillions of exciting things to speak about! So since you all want to share the "excitement", you might as well share the pains too!

Right now, it's hotter than hell and I'm even hot indoors with the airconditioning going 24/7. I reckon it's hot flushes combined with temps of upper 40's and early 50's! With a maximum of 4 split units going daily, the bloody bill came in at Lm 130 for 4 weeks ..... and that's switching off 3 of them at night too! So I daren't keep all 17 units going cos we won't be able to afford the bill when it comes.

Another reason for being pissed off is that we're now on a diet and you all know HOW I HATE DIETS ! Apart from everything else is the fact that I hate not baking bread - and not eating it - so this is another reason for being PISSED OFF. See if I had baked a loaf of bread today, for example, I would have beaten the shit out of the dough and my mood would have eased off - I might even have been in a good mood tonight instead of feeling like a damned maniac - ooof! And don't ask how much I'm weighing cos I'm not telling.... so there!

Third reason is that I hired a bloody full-time, live-in house-keeper after ages of searching for the right one only to be told that she has to go on vacation for TWO months after working with us for only 2 weeks................. grrrrrrrr ! My house-keeper is on holiday whilst I am cleaning and ironing in this bloody heat - great fun! Am I a sucker or what??

Yet another reason for being pissed off is that Nemxa has something wrong with her nose and I had to take her to the vet yesterday only to be told that they have to have her anaesthetised tomorrow to be able to take a biopsy for her. Also some blood tests etc ............ all this to the value of Lm 200 - that's apart from yesterday's consultation (5 minutes) which cost me Lm 12. If anyone thinks coming here makes you rich - forget it !! There are no taxes but boy! is everything else expensive............... Fingers crossed for my poor Nemxa - results come back in a couple of weeks or so.

In the meantime, one thing that is not pissing me off is the lovely TINA - the Maltese terrier we're baby-sitting for the next 3 weeks? She's is such a bundle of fun -except at night when she starts yapping at the least little noise but that's another story :-) We love her! And she's already nearly house-trained so by the time her parents come back she should be perfect .... are you reading this Chicklet??????!! Oh and by the way ......... she's sleeping on my pillow - every night :-)

Major reason for being pissed off - I am not beading enough :-( With all this going on, I can't seem to have more than an hour at a time to bead and what the hell can I do in an hour??? I have so many things in my mind that I want to bead but days are dashing by before I know it, it's evening and time for bed and I haven't done anything - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

And now I'm trying to post some photos and it won't do what I want it to so I'm out of here - I'm going to sleep off today cos it's been one of them days :-(

Later ...........................

j x