It's Gettin Hot Here...so take off all your clothes...

Above - F, B3, N and B2 take respite from the heat in the lounge of the Presidential Palace, Abu Dhabi.

Above - Hot days and searing rays means that 'playing toy army's in the garden' is a nocturnal activity.

Above - Our summer house in Abu Dhabi...the Presidential Palace.

Above - Local UAE song and dance, essentially lots of repetitive drumming and humming.

Above - With a cappuccino going for 54dhs in the palace bar, i was happy to order a round of waters for the troupes.

Above - B4 loves watering his own little garden.

Another month has passed, and i have been even slacker than usual in keeping the world posted about our little adventure in the middle East. My sincere apologies, just don't let the local police here know i have committed such an offence. The local paper published a story about an English fella who gave another driver the 'bird'. He was sighted by a passing police car, arrested, given 60 lashings (not tongue lashings) and will be deported after serving another 30 days in jail. To put this into perspective, it certainly reduces any incidents of road-rage, but the way these people drive is just unbelievably dangerous, and although i don't give people the bird, if they could hear what i am yelling at them, I'd be buried up to my head and stoned to death and left for the ants to clean up the mess. (that's too graphic isn't it?, sorry...again)

All going well here though. Fran and the boys are 2 and half weeks into the 12 week school holiday period and all are still on speaking terms despite being inside together most of the time. Fran is doing an hour or so of home schooling each day which includes some reading, writing exercises, projects on the local area or any other topic the boys choose, music and games of scrabble. B3 and B4 pretend to be doing their work also, with B4 now able to fit 2 pens in each nostril.

By 9am or so, they normally go swimming and hang out in the games room for a couple of hours or until it is just too hot. The days are getting up to about 46-49C each day now, and even though Al Ain is meant to be very dry, the humidity of late has been about 60%, and very muggy.

The hotter weather is making my work a little more difficult also, so i am trying to spend about 5 hours each morning on the sites doing lots of training and benchmarking etc, and then seeking respite in the office thereafter putting together reports etc. The labour obviously get slowed down and with a recent introduction of decree meaning labourers are not to be on site during the hours of 12.30 to 4pm, the starting hours are now 4.30am, although thankfully i have handed over the project management roles now, so i can start at a more reasonable hour.

Last week we went to Abu Dhabi (capital of UAE) for the day. Being a coastal area, the temperatures are lower (40C), but the humidity is really high. We stumbled across the Presidential Palace, a truly magnificent building and grounds of mammoth proportions. It was originally built to hold a conference of all the sheiks, and is today used to house any visiting rulers and parliamentary sessions are also held there. One of the wings is now a well disguised, highly exclusive hotel to the absurdly rich and famous. So when the 6 of us rocked up in our boardies and thongs, we coped a few strange stares, but were warmly welcomed none the less. Fran found a lovely part of the hotel serving high tea and is now excited about taking any visiting friends / family to 'high tea' at the Presidential Palace.

We also went ten pin bowling recently. You've probably heard of disco bowling or being bowling while they play music loudly to raise the atmosphere level....right? Well, the UAE is no different, we got some great video footage of the boys bowling alongside all these fellas in their long traditional dresses, with colourful polished bowling shoes instead of their usual sandal, and the loudest Arabic music in town. Again, we were the odd ones out, but had a great time and the local guys really enjoyed watching B3 and B4 try to bowl. FS was a real standout...not for a great bowling ability but as the only female in the whole place. For the record the winners list read B1 first then NS, B3 and B2, with B4 and FS failing to register.

With every single one of our neighbours having gone away for the summer months (July and August), we are doing alot of plant and pet minding. but the greatest things is my Sth African neighbour has left us his key and said we could use his TV if we wanted. the guys is a 'sports nut', and so has every possible cable Chanel and sports channel available. He has a wide screen plasma the size of a trampoline, so the recent Wallabies games, WQS and PGA events etc have been awesome to watch live.

Cheers for now, as usual we look forward to receiving your emails and letters and hero faxes.