Roasted Culveys in Kuwait - July 2009

Do you like our house?? It has been named the garden house by the kids, as in Kuwait, it is quite unusual to have a proper garden. Something to do with the fact that you can only spend about 5 minutes in it before you start to feel your life ebbing away! We’re very happy with it, plenty of space, cool, and a great basement for the kids playroom, complete with 5m trampoline! Keeps them active while it’s too hot to play outside.

So we left off last time, with the kids in school, Lyra making friends, and me getting stuck in at work! We had a couple of birthdays in April, our Kaibo was 3, and celebrated it at school and at home, his favourite present was his garage which has been the best present he has ever had judging by his reaction, he was absolutely beside himself. He was really sweet! Then of course Lyra had a little birthday too, as with mine, we kept it quiet as the focus was still on getting our lives sorted out, but we did manage a night out in the Blue Elephant, and Ly even sneaked a few vodka’s into her orange juice!!

So, all was coming together, but there was one thing still missing, and that was our furniture. We were approaching 7 months living out of suitcases, and desperately wanting to see our furniture. Well getting it out of the Ukraine proved to be incredibly difficult, which was no surprise. I lost count of how many times I had to go to the Ukraine embassy (always pleased to see you!), and if it wasn’t for Alexey, one of my colleagues in Ukraine, we would never of seen it again. Thanks Alexey!

It did eventually leave though and on the 13th May, it rolled up on to the hot sands of Kuwait.

Just before it did arrive, we took off for a few days in Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. It was a chance to chill out after all the hassles of late and to catch up with a few friends we hadn’t seen in ages. We landed in Dubai, and spent our first night with Saada, Ben, Yasmin, and Leo. They hadn’t been in Dubai long and we were very grateful that they let us crash at theirs so soon after moving in! We had a fun night recounting the drama of our lives over the last few months! Then the next day we headed South to Abu Dhabi.

I hadn’t seen Jo and Matt since Korea, which was 6 years ago!! Needless to say, much had changed in that time! When we were last all together Jo and Matt were not even married, now we both a couple kids each!! We met Jo in the afternoon with her boys and had lunch at Marina Mall, then the kids had some fun in the play area while we started to catch up.

With baby sitters in place we headed out that evening and had a great dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, the evening flew by as we all brought each other up to date, it was all very different to our nights out in Korea.... that was until we decided to go to a bar at our hotel, that had a great band playing..from here, we wound the clocks back and it was just like being in Korea, far too much beer, lots of singing, and a sky just getting light by the time we got to bed!!!

Our ride back to Dubai, was a quiet affair!

That evening, in Dubai was the opening night of the Worlds highest dancing fountain at the new Dubai Mall, and by some miracle, Saada had managed to get us a table in a restaurant overlooking the fountains, what a result! With Sheikh Mohammed and all his cronies on the other bank, we had prime seats for what was a pretty amazing display! Following all that fun, we were very ready for a day around the pool at Ben and Saada’s on the Saturday, it was so nice to sit in the sun and chill out.

We were heading home the following evening but not before we had had a good look around the Dubai mall, it is truly vast, and in the middle of it is an enormous aquarium, the kids loved it, the sharks and rays were truly amazing to watch.

A couple of days after we got back it was that day we had been waiting for.. our furniture finally arrived, two containers of the stuff!! The joy of it’s arrival was reasonably short lived, for a number of reasons, firstly just the scale of the task once it was all in the house was pretty daunting, it was also clear that a fair few boxes had been opened and examined along the way and it was in a real mess, with signs of breakage's, plus, I was leaving the next day on a business trip to Memphis! Not the best timing I agree, but I couldn’t change it. That meant that Lyra had to work with the unpacking team on her own with the kids and animals to deal with too! Of course Padema was there to help where she could but it was limited.

Needless to say it was incredibly tough, after 5 days, every box had been opened and placed in what seemed to be the right room, although we had to do a lot of shifting around. Then came the ominous task of actually finding homes for everything. This stage took weeks and pushed Lyra to the brink of insanity! Lets just say, we are not planning to move again for a while!!

After 2 months, we are now all straight, and the memory is fading, the insurance company have paid up for our losses, and we’re moving on!!

To help us back into normal life we were preparing for India’s first school production! Called Giraffe's can’t dance, Indi was playing a chimpanzee and had been practising her lines for weeks. With camera’s and camcorders we watched as Indi did her stuff, she was so sweet, not only did she do well but she was congratulating all her classmates as they finished their parts too, it was lovely to watch. At the end, we had another surprise, India won ‘Star of the Week’ and was presented with a certificate in front of the assembly. It was for settling in so well and so quickly, she was very proud of herself, as of course were we!!

Part of the honour of being star of the week, is that you get to look after Patrick the teddy for a week and tell your story in a special scrap book. Well Indi’s week coincided with us taking Haz to the vets as he seemed to be very weak and losing weight. Turns out that he has diabetes and we now have to inject him with insulin twice a day. He is doing much better now, but his glucose levels remain worryingly high, we have tried cat insulin, human insulin, and are currently on canine insulin!

By early June, we felt organised enough to invite a few friends round for a bit of a party before everyone departed for the summer (leaving the guys behind!). Padema made a great curry for us and Lyra did lots of other dishes to accompany it. We had managed to build up a bit of a stash of smuggled booze, and our guests were generous in their sharing of home made wine etc. The kids had a wild time on the trampoline and we managed to sit outside from about 9pm which made a very pleasant change. It was a great night, a real chill out, well relatively anyway!!

June also saw the arrival of a decent car for us, we had been renting, but it was a saloon so not particularly spacious, now we have a very nice Subaru Tribeca, it wasn’t planned, but we met some one that was returning to the UK and they had a lease on the car for another 15 months so it was nice and easy. I still want to get a second car, but the boss says we can’t afford it...maybe next year!!

The temperature in Kuwait, was now regularly in the high 40’s and starting to hit 50C some days so we were very happy to jump on a plane and start the summer break with a trip back to Turkey for a couple of weeks! We spent the first few days in Istanbul with our lovely friends, The Dayi family! As usual they were great hosts and it was lovely to catch up with them and enjoy the sights of Istanbul. We had a great trip up the Bosporus, the kids loved being on the boat.

We couldn’t hang around though because Izmir beckoned! Arriving in Izmir was like coming home for us.. so many great memories, so many great friends, all of whom made us feel very welcome. First of all we had a few days with Mel and Mentes, it was just great to have a beer, sit down and catch up! It was so like we had never left, the kids picked up where they’d left off and had so much fun with Leah and Kyan, A great few days was had, even went to Leah’s school play which was really good (I will copy the tape for you Mel, I just need my wife to come home with it!). Sadly they had to head off to UK as they are preparing their move back so we were out on our ear!

Luckily the Eagles took pity on us and let us rough it at theirs!! And again great fun, loads of catching up and as always Indi and Kai had a ball with their big friends, JP and Siobhan. Over the weekend far too much beer and fish was consumed and I was starting to make a very big splash whenever those pesky kids pushed me in!! Need that Juice Master again!!

Before I left, we caught up with Richard, Steph and Co at Cesme, I managed to pop in to the office and say Hi, Ebru helped us loads as always and became our official translator for Gunay and his family, and to top it all off, Vince serenaded us on my last night with some truly fantastic renditions of my favourite tunes on his guitar! It really was inspiring, I have dusted mine off again, and started that long and painful journey to learning to play!

Sadly, all too soon my holiday had to end, it was time for me to head back to the hot country and leave Ly and the kids to meet up with everyone else... which I’m sure she will tell you all about in the next update!

They are away for two months, which has been tough, thank god for Skype! I did pop over to Northampton for a weekend to get my family fix, which was so nice, it was a really great weekend. And now it’s about 4 weeks and counting!

I’ve been travelling all over the place in my new job, lots of quick visits to Dubai, but also Beruit, Cairo, Memphis, and this week, I’m off to Doha in Qatar and  Jeddah in Saudi which should be interesting!! Then to top it off before I go to Egypt to meet Ly and the kids, I’ve got a week in Los Angeles to meet with a new brand partner we are working with. Very exciting, very tiring, and very good at making the time zip by until the family are back with me!!

Take care for now, enjoy the photo’s, there will be more but Lyra has a load on her laptop, so there will be an update to the photo’s again soon!

Lots of Love,

Dan (and from a far, the rest of the travelling Culvey’s!) xxxxx