Lunch

Nick and I went down the Suq to collect my birthday present earrings - sapphires set in white gold - I picked the sapphires myself and Mr Lucky Gems set them - It was lunch hour and we followed the crowd into a Filipino cafe - a modest establishment jollied up with Christmas lights; the waitresses didn't speak English, the menu was in Tagalo and all dishes were served with a huge mound of steaming sticky rice.
"I never realised Filipino food was so popular in Bahrain," said Nick.
But it wasn't the Filipino food which was proving such a big hit with the customers -it was the wide screeen TV at the back of the room showing a Filipino game show with beautiful girls in bikinis. When the game show regretfully ended and a fully dressed soap opera came on the cafe quickly emptied.

Rain

It's raining here in Bahrain. Bahrain + rain = chaos. Drains are full of sand, roads are flooded, drivers creep along with hazard lights flashing, and the roof of our villa has 500 leaks...
It's all right for me - I rather like it - but my kids are hopeless with rain. They've been expatriates for most of their lives, spending only the briefest of wet summers in Ireland (see photo above) - and they've not learnt the valuable art of keeping their feet dry on a wet pavement.
"Walk around the puddles, not in them!!"
"Look where you're going!"
"Being a spare pair of socks in your school bag."
Their soaking wet school shoes were stuffed with newspaper last night but since there's no heat in our house they were still wet this morning. I had to put them into the oven and gently toast them while making the porridge for breakfast

Abaya

Nick and I had to go back to the hospital to get Rex's kidney blood results. We were going out for dinner afterwards and as I was dressed in a short shirt I wore an abaya over my clothes so as not to cause offence. (Also, it kept me warm). The staff were extremely kind in the hospital and when we got to the restaurant, Mezzaluna, Nick and I were taken to one of the VIP tables secluded in an alcove - I'm wondering now was it the abaya which got such a good table and such good service?

Wayne and Coleen

Wayne and Coleen are in Dubai this week, soaking up Middle East sun. They’re celebrating Wayne’s 25th birthday and his new five year contract with Manchester United. They are staying at the Burj Al Arab – each room has its own butler, and the hotel spa serves up caviar facials; I don’t need to tell you the price; if you’re comfortable paying £25 for chicken nuggets and chips you’ll not quibble about the price of the caviar facial.
I can’t really blame Wayne and Coleen for choosing to visit Dubai instead of humble Bahrain where I live. Dubai is a rich person’s paradise, a fantasy island where the shopping is legendary: Dubai Mall is the size of fifty football pitches – it has 1200 shops and an ice rink and the biggest sweetshop in the world.
Burj Al Arab can provide a Rolls Royce to take the lucky pair shopping; they won’t even have to dress modestly for Dubai is tolerant and cosmopolitan; no one will tut tut at Coleen’s bare shoulders or Wayne’s exposed injured ankle.
With service like that why would anyone choose to visit Bahrain?
I can think of only one thing the Rooney’s are perhaps unaware of – Bahrain has a barber’s shop on Budayia Highway called the Manchester United Men’s Hair Salon. The painted bill board above the door features Wayne with Eric and Ryan and Alex. And even though the shop pin-up is Ryan Giggs (as a very young man) I know for a fact that should Wayne join the queue and wait his turn for a trim and a shave and a complimentary Indian head massage the barber won’t charge him much more than 75p for the privilege. He might even allow him to autograph his portrait over the door.

Globe

When I was an Orange child growing up in 'Ulster Says No' we had a map of Northern Ireland up on the classroom wall, with blue sea all around it.
I asked: "Where's Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty?"
They told me: "That's in a foreign country, nothing to do with us..."
I said, "But you can't just pretend it doesn't exist - can you?"
And so to today when we went to the shop to buy pencils and rubbers for school and the sweetest wee globe that lights up - it's fascinating to study - there are so many new countries formed from the breakup of USSR - Belarus, and Lithuania and Ukraine...
"What's the dirty mark?" asked Maud, pointing to eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
"It's not a dirty mark," said Rex. "It's black marker pen and it won't rub off."
"I didn't do it!" they chorused.
Of course they hadn't done it - someone else in the stationery shop had blotted out Israel with indelible ink.

Modesty

Today we shopped for school uniforms. I thought Maud's school dress slightly short, it stopped at her knee, and I worried that after a couple of washes it might shrink shorter. I said:
"This dress is too short for my daughter. Can you please make it longer - mid calf?"
The shopkeeper was shocked. "Mid calf? Are you Muslim?"
I didn't want to hurt his feelings by explaining it was the quality of the fabric I doubted, not my daughter's virtue.
I said: "My husband's Catholic, not Muslim."
He nodded. He understood. "Certainly, Madam," he said.
Maud was less impressed. "I'm going to look like a dork," she said.

A Hot Potato

We were flying back to Bahrain. We weighed the suitcases to make sure they were less than 21KG. Just for a laugh I got on. To discover I weigh 7Kg more than a month ago- a month ago I weighed myself when we were packing the suitcases to travel to Ireland...
How did I gain this extra weight?
There's no point pretending I don't know.
For a month I've been induging in potato bread and fried eggs for breakfast, baked potatoes and butter for lunch, fish and chips from the chipper for tea. That's three sets of spuds every day. And it's a sad but true fact that the more spuds you eat, the more like a potato you look...

Glorious Twelfth

Today is the Glorious Twelfth.
When I was growing up, in my part of rural Ulster, even during the worst of the Troubles, my mother cooked us a fry for breakfast, my father wore a dark suit and we were taken to watch the bands in the village. Sometimes Catholic kids threw stones; it added to the festival atmosphere.
This morning my mother texted me: 'Do you know what day this is? Do you remember anything about your cultural heritage?'
Of course I remember my cultural heritage!
I rushed straight out to the ex-patriate supermarket and bought bacon and sausages for a big fry up.
Then I told Nick: "Now, you'll have to put on a dark suit, and you need a bowler hat, and you'd better carry that black umbrella Saba uses to keep off the sun...."
"And then what?"
"Then we march down the street and throw a few stones at the Kerala Catholic Men's Association..."

Middle Eastern Riding Lesson

I've lived in the Middle East for a long time. First I worked as airstewardess, then I taught English as a Foreign language. A lot has changed in fifteen years, but some things stay the same -
Tonight I had a riding lesson, it took up half the arena. In the other half was a family - mum, dad and son were having a group lesson together. The family lesson finished and mum carefully rode her horse round the perimeter of the arena to get to the gate. Dad and his son rode their horses straight through my jumping lesson, I had to abort take off twice, the first time because they were in front of the jump, the second time because they were on my landing pad.
My (male) instructor did not ask them to move away. I continued to canter round and round my half of the arena until they were gone. Then I was able to jump.