Month: July 2019

Walking the Boards

Under the boardwalk. Down by the sea.

Artie Resnick & Kenny Young

It was a bright, cloudless November morning when my sister, baby niece and I decided to go for a stroll on the Palm Jumeirah boardwalk. Having visited a fair few British seaside towns, I envisaged a promenade with people walking or running and elderly couples sitting on benches eating ice-creams. Unsurprisingly, the reality was entirely different. After all, this is Dubai.

Completed in 2016, the boardwalk is an 11 km long, 6 m wide walkway which hugs the coastline around the top of the Palm. It is a striking addition to the man-made Palm. The colour of the boards contrasts with the rocky shore and the Arabian ocean beyond, making a fabulous photographic opportunity.

The boardwalk was all but deserted. We saw a few other tourists taking photographs but not another soul. Sadly, there were no ice cream vans or food trucks to be found although we had a good cup of coffee in an atmospheric hotel cafe nearby. The boardwalk is a perfect place for a peaceful walk or run, without having to leap out of the way of bikes, skate boards and scooters. It is also a great spot to take visitors for a few holiday photographs.

There are plans to develop four new extensions from the central trunk. These expansion plans also include glass-covered cafes, food trucks and refreshment stands. It won’t quite be a Mr Whippy on Worthing seafront, but it might come close.

  • Worthing ice cream

The Heat

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance

Jane Austen

In the UK, summer (if it happens) is the season of fun, to play outdoors, meet friends for picnics and concerts in the park, go to the beach and feel happy. That is turned on its head in Dubai. We live in a desert. Summer is the season to stay inside and long for it to be over. It seems that everyone, who is able to, leaves for the summer, travelling home or to somewhere with fresh air. People have been talking about the summer, with dread, for some months. In a way, I have been looking forward to it. I want to experience the summer for myself.

The heat is extraordinary. The cold water in the taps is running hot, the plastic coating on the handlebars of my bicycle has melted, the ground scalds the soles of my feet within a few steps. It honestly feels like I’ve opened the oven door and stuck my head inside, with the fan running.

I know that I am fortunate. I can hop from one air conditioned space to another and spend a minimal amount of time outside. I am soaked within seconds of stepping outside, a human condenser that has been chilled by the AC and then exposed to the searing humidity. It is said that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. Well, there are no clothes that are good for this. I am damp and crumpled all the time.

I stop complaining when I look out of my car window and see a man in coveralls cycling against the traffic with all his gardening equipment strapped to his bike. It’s 48 degrees. I’ll quietly escape to Europe with the children and fully experience the summer next year.

Packing up

There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you’re going is as good as where you’ve been

Richard Proenneke

I have mixed emotions about packing. Packing suitcases to go away on a summer holiday fills me with excitement and anticipation. Packing my old trunk to go back to boarding school at the end of the holidays was less welcome. Packing up an entire house to emigrate to a relatively unknown country was a completely new experience altogether.

I started with good intentions. I felt positive about using this opportunity to clear out all the things we had accumulated over the last decade, a double garage and a loft filled with bags of baby clothes, toys, and old furniture that had never found a place in our home.

Every item in the house was to sell, ship or store. Cash payments for small items or for anything belonging to the children were put into a “Dubai kitty”, a good incentive to sort through the toy mountain and look forward to some new beach toys for Dubai.

Inevitably, my good intentions disappeared in a whirlwind of work, children, paperwork and goodbyes. Selling takes time, especially answering the endless obscure questions on Ebay. Instead I made use of the many local charity shops and used Freecycle to mop up any leftover items. It then took 3 days of professional packing and “ship…store” to empty the house.

Finally, all that remained was a completely empty house, 3 big suitcases, 3 small cases, 2 children and 1 slightly emotional and exhausted Mummy.