Roasted Culveys in Kuwait - Dec 2009

Have you finished reading the last masterpiece from the lovely Lyra?? Yes? Well, settle back in the chair, because here’s another!!

So Ly finished with her return to Kuwait after a long summer away. It was great having them back to break the silence in the house and it didn’t take long for it all to seem very normal again! Izzy was happy to see her playmates back and the weekend walks on the beach were great with Indi and Kai chucking rocks for Izzy to chase into the sea. Hariem also enjoyed the attention, he seemed to be coping with his diabetes, although there were good days and bad.

Ramadan was in full swing on our return from Egypt, so it was no eating or drinking from sun up to sun down when outside of home. Unlike Turkey. it is strictly followed here, and people can get pretty upset if they see you breaking fast. It certainly had an impact on me at work, although there was a place to go and have a secret swig! Lyra’s problem was she kept on forgetting that it was Ramadan. Offering people drinks, or hassling assistants in Dean and Deluca to let her sample the olives!! The poor guy didn’t know what to do! Part of Ramadan, is Gugian, where all the kids go around and sing songs at your door for sweets, sounds cute huh, not so when it is still happening at 11:30 at night and they lean on the bell until you answer it!! During Gugian, Indi dressed up in traditional dress, head scarf et all for a day while they celebrated it at her school.

The first important task in September was to get Indi settled back into school, it had been a long 3 month holiday, but it was time to slip on the uniform and knuckle down to some real studying in year 1. Her best friends were allocated to different classes, but that didn’t phase her at all, she was happy to have a whole bunch of new friends to make. Mrs Johnston, Indi’s teacher is wonderful, Indi is the teachers pet, and is constantly getting house points for being the first to her chair, or having the tidiest desk. Cute now, but she could be in trouble with her class mates if she keeps the standards so high!!

Kai’s return to nursery was a bit more complicated. The Ministry here closed all Nurseries due to swine flu! Then decided to open the private one’s, so Kai started at a new nursery, Learning Steps. He really liked the school and got much more involved than he did last year at Happy Chappies. But just as all seemed to be settled, the private nurseries were closed too! That meant Kai was at home everyday! The poor lad was desperate for stimulation his own age, but no under five’s were permitted to go to school. One thing it has done for him though, is that he’s a pro at mario-kart on the Wii!!

To help with his stimulation we took on a young Egyptian guy called Karim, he had recently completed his degree in pharmacy and was looking for some part time work. Kai and Indi love him to bits and love their afternoons bouncing on the trampoline or colouring, or practising their words, letters and numbers with him! He has been a real pleasure to have around.

While Kai has been running riot at home, Indi has been loving school, she’s made many friends, and the sleep-overs have started! Her first was over at Charlotte’s (or Charlie as she’s known to everyone except Indi, who insists her name is Charlotte). Charlie then came and stayed at ours, then it was Beth, and Kaitlin, and on it goes!! Indi was also getting into her ECA’s (Extra Curricular Activities). She has been Swimming twice a week, attending Art Attack, and learning dance at Tiny Jazz. She has really come alive with it all. Her swimming is nothing short of amazing. Most weekends until recently have been spent at the Hilton Beach Club, which is a little piece of heaven amongst the madness of Kuwait. Indi and her friends spent most of their days, jumping and diving underwater and swimming stronger and stronger each week, it really has been a revolution this summer.

After a hard days lounging by the pool, we regularly drifted over to the in house Thai restaurant called the Blue Elephant, for some very scrummy Thai food in a wonderful setting. Kai in particular is a big fan, especially when they let him feed the fish in the pool! Another favourite at the Hilton has been Pizza Express, our guys just love making their own pizza’s!

In early October. we had a great evening out round our friends Avril and John’s. They have a pool table and darts all set up in the house! John even makes his own beer! It was like being down the pub (only hotter!).

One of the attractions in Kuwait, is called the Scientific centre, and the most popular part of it is the aquarium, in our 9 months here we hadn’t managed to visit it once, despite Indi’s requests, but recently we did as she asked and spent a Friday afternoon there. What a fab place, the aquarium is pretty great, not Dubai mall great, but the kids had a great time, especially enjoyed the sharks and penguins. To make it even more fun, we ran into two of Indi’s school mates which pretty much topped off the perfect day for her!

We managed to pry the Wii controller our of Kai’s hand one Saturday and headed up to The Avenues, a big mall, owned by my employer Alshaya. The great thing about that is all the new brands we bring get opened there first. In October it was the turn of Pinkberry, a cool frozen yoghurt concept from LA, well, our guys were hooked, they loved it, as did most of Kuwait, as they were queuing out of the door for the first few weeks!

Going out and about was a bit iffy during these days as at one point, both Indi and Kai had black eyes! Indi slipped at swimming a battered her eye with her goggles, and Kai got scratched by Pilgrim, our cat! Both were looking in the wars, it’s a surprise that nobody questioned us!!

Mid October was very tough for us all as after an 8 month battle, Hariem finally gave in to his diabetes, he had been struggling for a few weeks between very high glucose levels and then slipping into hypo glycemic coma’s due to a lack of glucose. It was getting harder to find the right balance. Then sadly on October 16th , we found him in the garden, where he loved to chill out. Haz was about 12 years old and had travelled with us, ever since we left the UK, we all miss him still.

Our Princess helped us all pick ourselves up by winning star of the week at school. She had won it for being a star when she stood in for her class mate at the last minute to do a short play during assembly to her year. She played a mouse, who wanted to do many things but was always told he was too small, but the mouse taught her friends the power of ‘believing in yourself’, pretty apt I’m sure you will agree!

After many months of visa issues, my boss Tony, was finally able to head off and bring his family to Kuwait from Indonesia in October, while he was away, we had the pleasure of entertaining his Dad, we headed to our favourite restaurant, The Blue Elephant, and had a great night. The kids behaved impeccably, and I got to know some great stories about my boss that I’m sure will come in handy one day!! Ahh the power of Vodka (sneaked in, in a water bottle of course!).

Once Neni (Tony’s wife) and their two kids Ryan, and baby Lewis had settled in a few of us met up at Totally Fish for a really nice evening, the kids got on well, and it was great to see Tony and Neni relaxing after a traumatic few months of Kuwaiti bureaucracy!  James Dean (yes, that’s right, I have James Dean working in my team, looking good for his age too) and his wife Liz joined us with their little lad Joshua, for a wonderful evening of great food and it ended with us sat under the stars enjoying a puff on a shisha pipe...fabulous!

Before the month was out, Indi and her Tiny Jazz class got to show off to the Mum’s their skills, check out the pictures, what a bunch of posers!! It’s hard to remember they are only 5!!

We got to put our posh gear on too, as we were off to the British Embassy for the PAWS Ball, PAWS are a charity that help stray animals, a much needed service in the Middle East, so we were happy to dress up, turn out, and get pooped!! Yes, within the walls of the embassy, you can have beer!! It was a bit rationed, but as always we found ways to ensure we got our share! It was a great night that finished with us doing impressions of our kaibo’s grooving on the dance floor, now I thought it was supposed to be your kids that danced like your Dad, not the other way around!!

As October drew to a close, we jetted off for a week in Dubai, at this time of year the weather is really lovely, not too hot and humid. The trip started off with some ‘fun’, our direct flight seemingly was direct via Bahrain, and just to rub salt in our wounds they chose to take one of our suitcases off and leave it in Bahrain! Lovely, I had to sit around the pool the next day in my jeans, and the kids had to swim in their pants!! But, it was a short lived pain, and we soon got into the swing of it once our gear turned up (which I had to go and fetch from the airport (blooming low cost airlines)!

After chilling by the pool, we met up with Kate and Paul who were over from Turkey, we spent a fun day with them, riding the new metro, going to a great park, and ending up at the dancing water fountain at the Dubai mall (biggest in the world of course!). India and Kai, had a ball with Daniel and Eleanor, in fact, India and Daniel announced that they were getting married! Following all that excitement, we needed another day by the pool, before packing our bags and taking over Saada and Ben’s house! Really, first night, had a BBQ and invited our friends Pauline, Susie and Steve, plus their kids! Then on the Saturday dragged them down to Jumeriah beach again with Susie, Steve and Hannah, all topped off with a lovely Lebanese dinner at Sarai (another Alshaya restaurant!). The week flew by, and soon we were on the flight home (which actually went direct!). A great week was had by all, and we are eternally grateful to Ben and Saada’s hospitality.

The pace didn’t let up though, as the following weekend, Lyra and I slipped off for a night back in Dubai (minus the kids, thanks to Padema and Karim), for a festival, Dubai Sound City! Met up with friends, James M, Pauline (again), Richard and his wife Kirsty at the Irish village and proceeded to tuck into some rather nice beer, some great music (Courteeners, Gabrielle Climi, Ocean Colour Scene, and the Happy Mondays), and way to many pies!! First gig in ages, it was a really cool night out, and thanks to Pauline for allowing us to crash at hers, and taking us to the best chill out brunch, on her birthday too! It was a pleasure to share it with you girl!

After all that manic fun, Lyra turned to her inner self with a couple of Reiki sessions, she’s even thinking about learning how to do it, should be fun for me!! The holistic life didn’t last though as it wasn’t long before we decided to have an open house at ours, the girls kicked it off in the afternoon, and the workers struggled in later to play a bit of catch up! Padema excelled herself as usual with a top curry selection, and our first batch of home made vino was a real hit! Too much of a hit actually, it’s nearly all gone!! Better get and make another batch!!

It was also time for common sense to prevail and the Government finally bowed to pressure and re-opened the nurseries, Kiabo could get back to school at last! He’s doing really well, his letter recognition and even writing is really coming on. He seems very keen to learn, it’s great to see.

In the middle of November, we had a big event in Kuwait, it rained!! Unbelievably, the weather went from 30C and sunny to about 18C overnight, and it rained for about a week! It really felt like winter had arrived! In the spirit of our cool weather and despite the fact that it wasn’t even December, we dragged the Christmas tree out of the basement, stuck on some Christmas tunes and up went the decorations! Now that really got Indi and Kai into the Christmas spirit! They are so excited, especially since December 1st, and they got to open the advent calendars!

We consider ourselves to be very lucky here to have a really friendly Landlord where we live. Narjes and Mohammed have been very helpful to us all year, and they topped it off a couple of weeks back by inviting us round for dinner. They were lovely hosts, and treated us to some fabulous Arabic cuisine, and allowed us to understand a bit more about Kuwaiti’s, arabic life, and how things have changed over the years here. The kids had a great time too, They have 3 little ones and they played together brilliantly all afternoon. We are looking forward to returning the favour in the new year.

Well, December is here, but before we could get too excited about heading home for Christmas, we had to cope without Lyra for a week, as she jetted off the the UK and Bulgaria to wish Kyra a happy 1st birthday, and to collect the deeds for our new apartment in Bansko, Bulgaria, one of the hip ski resorts. The place looks fantastic Lyra tells me and it is open for business if anyone fancies a great bargain ski holiday!

Lyra is back in a few days, but the kids and I have coped without her, we kept busy, on Thursday it was India’s end of term production of Little Red Riding hood in the land of fairy tales which I went along to watch. Absolutely brilliant, very impressive from a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds! Indi’s class were all bee’s! They looked fantastic in their stripy outfits, and Indi was brimming with confidence as she strutted on stage to sing and dance their song. We followed that a with a weekend of fun at the mall kids playground and a winter land bazaar at Indi’s school, where Kai and Indi met Santa, and bought some presents in the kids only Secret Santa shop!

This week is the last week of school for our guys, Lyra is home on Wednesday (hurrah!), and then the countdown is truly on for our journey home for Christmas!! With the added bonus of my Sister Andrea’s wedding on the 30th too!

Looking forward to seeing many of you over Crimbo, and for those we won’t see, have a wonderful time, eat, drink, and be merry....sort the diet out in January!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Lots of love, The Culvey’s.

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