Roasted Culveys in Kuwait - July 2010

April in Kuwait means nice sunny days, about 30C, and a time to be outdoors before the real heat starts. Kai’s nursery did just that for their Easter hunt, and spent the day in Ahmadi park South of the city. Now the timing had to be right, because even at this time of year chocolate eggs and bunnies melt!

Needless to say once the kids were let loose to find their fill of easter goodness, the choccies were not laying in the sun too long!

We had been expecting Padema, our house maid, back from Sri Lanka for some time now, but sadly she seemed unable to commit so we had to look for somebody new. Luckily for us Jessie had been helping part time, and agreed to come and work for us full time. Both kids and Izzy took to her well and she is settling into our family well. 

Following quickly on from the Kuwait choc-fest, was Lyra & the kids trip to the UK. The trip started on Easter Sunday, and once again they headed to Jane’s for their annual Easter egg hunt with Devon and Hamish! This year it was even sunny so no rain mac’s required.

Now we all know what an animal lover Indi is, and she showed this once again whilst visiting The Cricks. They have a flock (?) of chickens and ducks in their garden which India was very impressed with. She took no time at all to be rounding them up and getting them into their run. By the end of the day she was even picking them up and giving them hugs!!

While the gang were in England our big boy Kaibo celebrated his 4th Birthday! Bowling was the order of the day and Kai had a blast with all his friends and family (except me of course). Kai’s cake was a T-Rex as he is a dinosaur nut job these days!

He had a great time, and lots of lovely presents of course, but he did miss his Dad a bit on the day, but I’m sure no where near as much as I missed him!

Uncle Chris had a treat in store for India as he invited her to go and watch the Northampton Saints Rugby! Indi had no idea what Rugby was but was very excited all the same. She made it very clear that she didn’t think she wanted to play, but had a great time shouting ‘Come on!!’.

All to quickly, the two weeks were up and it was time to go home..... but hang on what’s this... volcano’s erupting in Iceland!! Huge ash cloud over Britain and Europe!? No flights in or out!! Yes, Ly and Co. were stranded for about a week under that blooming cloud!! Indi and Kai missed a week of school / nursery, I had to spend another week on my own (boo hoo), and on top of that work was a nightmare as many of our brands are fed from the UK by air so we had shops running out of stock too!!

Thankfully my very resourceful wife kept close to developments and was on the first flight out!! It was great to have them back!

Kai’s first event on his return was a belated birthday / play date at home with his friends. He was so excited to have his friends over to his place for the first time, and they really had a lot of fun on the trampoline!

Shortly after we were all reunited, we had another birthday to celebrate! Lyra moved forward a year (still happily in her thirties) and we celebrated at another well timed ball. This time it was the turn of the Aussies to provide the action, and it was a fun filled night with all the usual under the table beverages!!

Other than the ball it was a fairly quiet birthday by Lyra’s standards, but I think she was just happy to be back home!

India reached a new milestone at the end of April, as she lost the first of her baby teeth! She went to bed that night rather excited, hoping that the tooth fairy would deliver, and she wasn’t disappointed, not only did the fairy leave her 1KD (£2.30) but also a book about the tooth fairy, and a little velvet bag to put her next tooth in ready for the fairy to take! She can’t wait for the rest to come out now.

India has also joined Rainbows (Part of the Girl Guides movement for under 7’s), she absolutely loves it. They do all sorts of great activities and all the leaders have these great ‘hippy’ names live Sun Diamond or Sun rise, etc!!

Work for me has been going well, we are expanding into Syria this year and I visited Damascus and Aleppo in May to understand the Logistics of the place etc. As most of the press regarding Syria is about terrorists etc, I was a bit dubious, but I can honestly say it is one of the best places I have visited. Great people, very secular society, fantastic places to see, Damascus was a fascinating old city. As you know I cannot visit places without tasting some local delicacies, which for Syria was sheep’s brain!! Difficult to describe, quite an odd texture, but not unpleasant, but also not top of my must have again list!

Just as everything seemed to be settling down we had a new saga.... while I was away, a local resident accused Izzy of biting his son, despite the boys original comment that it wasn’t Izzy, his fathers anger soon made him change his mind. Anyway, he got the police involved and we had to go through a whole investigation with Lyra, Jessie, and Karim all being interviewed by the police, and having to get all sorts of documentation translated etc. Thankfully in the end, the guy failed to get a medical report saying the boys scratch was caused by a dog, so the whole thing fizzled out. If ‘proven’ they would of taken Izzy, now that would of been an interesting day!!

May meant Dad C’s birthday, and this year it was a biggun! 70!! Dad had a great party, but sadly we were unable to join him so we had to sing happy birthday via Skype! It’s still hard to believe that my Dad who goes of trekking in the Amazon, windsurfing, and spends his days sending rude jokes around the internet is really 70, but it’s a fact, and I only wish he stay’s young in his heart for as long as possible!!

Since returning from the UK, the kids seemed to be suffering with cough’s and high temps, to the extent that India had to go onto antibiotics and Kai too was on strong cough mixture. Just as they seemed to be getting better, Lyra started, and it just got worse and worse, after several unsuccessful Doctors appointments, they finally decided she was suffering from Bronchitis and had a selection of antibiotics, and daily visits to the hospital to be hooked up to some inhaler type machine, but still she continued to suffer.

The kids were well into their final term of the school year, and Kaibo was really growing in Learning steps, you may recall he struggled to begin with, and was very quiet at school, he even felt intimidated by some of the more confident boys in the class. The great news is that Kai has really come on and is now very much involved in the class. He has excelled at the Jolly Phonics learning of sounds and letters, and his counting is very good too, he really seems to be enjoying learning. He has also built up some nice friends and never stops talking about Dylan, Louie, and Thomas. He has even made friends with Alex, who he really struggled with earlier in the year. Alex had a pool party which Kai went to and really had a ball!

For Indi it was a very busy time as her drama group, her dance group, and her class were all practicing for end of year shows! In amongst all this though she still managed to find time for love..... yes Indi met her first boyfriend, Liam Mooney! Luckily for him he is a very nice young lad, but we had a little chat anyway!!

As expected, it didn’t last, and Liam has moved to Dubai, to help him get over the loss, Indi has moved on, and has mentioned at least two more boyfriends since!!

The first show to hit the stage was Beauty and The Beast which Indi’s drama group ‘The Cool Kittens’ were to play a part in. This is a pretty big production with a cast of about 30/40 people from Indi’s age through to adults. As the opening night drew closer, the rehearsals became pretty much daily after school and at weekends. We were actually concerned whether the India would be able to cope with it all. but she seemed to be loving it.

The big day came for the opening performance, Indi went off early to get ready and we queued up outside to ensure we got a good seat. Sure enough we were in the front row, Kaibo was really excited to see his Sister on stage, so much so that he kept shouting where’s India in the parts where she wasn’t on stage!!

Indi played a little boy(!) in the opening sequence with the villagers and sang her heart out. Then later in the play she was a mouse as part of Cinderella (a scene where Belle is reading the story to the Beast). It was fantastic.

There were 5 showings of the play and we went along to the final night as well. The whole production had become much slicker and it was a brilliant performance. Kai was an active singer in parts too. Following the production, India took us on a tour backstage and explained how it all worked, then we attended the after show party where India hob knobbed with the main stars (the Beast, and Guston mainly). Kai’s favourite was Lumiere, and he managed to meet him on one of his many trips to the bathroom!!

Hot on the heels of this production was India’s class assembly which was all about talent. India was a ballerina and did a wonderful job, especially as she has never done any ballet! She really looked the part, and we have suggested she should try it, but she tells us she is too busy with her drama class! It was also a time to say thanks and goodbye to India’s wonderful teachers, Mrs Johnson, and Mrs Archer, both of them have been wonderful, and Indi is very fond of them, the parents clubbed together and bought them both very nice gifts. 

Still one more to go, it was time for her Jazz dance group to join up with all the dance classes at BSK (British School of Kuwait) for a celebration of all their hard work. It was under the theme of ‘Into the storybook...’ an adaptation of lots of children’s stories. The dance varied from hip hop to ballet and they aged from about 5 to 18.

Indi’s group did a number to ‘Groove is in heart’, they did great, but the overriding memory is of Indi and Katelin all made up. We were given instructions on the look they needed, which was slicked back hair, and heavy eye make, well the pair of them looked stunning, it was a bit scary, as they looked about sixteen, but they really enjoyed the experience.

As always as the school year comes to a close it is party time. With most kids going away for all the summer holidays, anyone with a birthday during the summer tries to have it in the last few weeks of term. At times the kids were double booked, or we would have parties both Friday and Saturday! The most notable were Charlies at her new big pad with the great basement, Aaliyah’s at the Hard Rock Cafe, and Beth’s which is always a great few hours of games, games, games!! Kai also had his fair share, he was guest of honour at Amy’s (Beth’s Sister), as she is deeply in love with Kai, and he also went to Yousef’s party at McDonalds which I only found out on arrival that it was a ‘No Men’ do (as is common for Kuwaiti kids, as Men and Women rarely socialise together), but nobody had told us!! Luckily I met one of Kai’s friends Mum outside and she was able to bring him in, just another cultural gem to remember!!

My travelling continued, I spent a week in Cairo, and even managed to get down to see the pyramids, which were incredible. I also spent a week in the USA with a new brand partner we are working with (Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works) the highlight of this trip though was a visit to the local Apple store to pick up a rather smashing iPad!!

Before the term could end though there was still a couple more events for India, at Rainbows it was time for her to make her Rainbows Promise and to become a fully fledged member of the group, I missed it sadly as I was in the States, but she did brilliant, and was given the honour of looking after Olivia, their Rainbows mascot for the whole summer (for the first time apparently)! She celebrated with a slap up meal at TGI Fridays! The Rainbows also did a sleep over in the school in tents which Indi loved, I think there was about 12-15 girls and they got to be Princesses for the night, you can only imagine!!

Then finally, the whole school had a poetry recital competition where the children had to choose a poem, read in front of their class, then the winners would go on to read in front of the school and parents, with winners form each year being chosen. Lyra decided that she would write a poem for India, the now well known ‘I believe in a world one day’, India practiced very hard and it all paid off, when she was chosen to go into the final. Lyra and Karim, went along to watch, and India did brilliant again, her confident recital won the 1st prize for her year!! She was thrilled and won a lovely book of children’s poems!!

But at last, school was over, both India and Kai had great reports, Kai came home on his last day complete with Mortar board as he had graduated from Nursery and was ready to step up to Big School in September!!

Still enough of school, it was holiday time, and we were off to Thailand!!!!!

We started in Bangkok, happy to be able to go following all the trouble there in the last few months! It was our first trip back for 5 years and we were all excited.

The first couple of nights were at the Marriott resort in Bangkok where we played in the pool, and had a great dinner at Benihana’s tepenyaki. The chef was brilliant and very entertaining, the kids loved it and Indi discovered she loved prawns!

The next night we took a boat and train ride to the night markets, but it was a bit wet, so we ended up sat in a bar watching the football. Kai met his first Ladyboy waitress (they seemed to get on very well!), and we enjoyed a few welcome beers! We decided on an alternative method to get back to the hotel and took a tuk-tuk, what a laugh, we had the biggest monsoon storm on the journey and got completely soaked but it was great fun, and the kids thought it was hilarious.

Just before we headed down to Phuket, we managed to catch up with our old friends Andy & Annie, but we all agreed that this was far to short a catch up, so they agreed to come down to Phuket too, for the weekend!

The Marriott resort in Phuket was just as we remembered, but with a whole load of new developments which were great! We settled into our apartment and hit the pool! Kai and Indi simply loved it around the pool and especially the water slide! Kai was a bit nervous at first but after a few runs with me and his rubber ring firmly in place he soon learnt to go it alone!

Kai’s confidence in the water really came on during the trip, so much so that he was happy to swim across the deep end and jump in at any moment. This almost got the better of him a couple times where he first fell in while trying to get past a sun bed! Luckily he grabbed the side as he went in and managed to hold on (as I dived in after him!) then later on his jumping in got a bit too crazy and he slipped straight through his ring in the deep end, luckily I was right there to bring him back!

India’s swimming has been great for a while but she continued to get stronger, and started to dive in! She would happily of spent the whole holiday around the pool I think!

As we were there during the rainy season, we did have a bit of rain to contend with, generally the odd heavy shower / monsoon, that quickly cleared, but on a couple of days it was a bit more persistent, thankfully we had the kids club, which they both enjoyed, but especially India.

One day the rain was particularly hard so we decided to hire a car and have a drive around, as you would expect, it didn’t take long to find Tesco, so we had to have a wander around there, and how it paid off as we left with two boxes of our favourite Korean noodles, Shin Ramen!! We ventured on towards the south of the island and came across an elephant centre. The kids fed the elephants about a hundred banana’s which they thought was fabulous, but we decided it was just too wet to go for a trek. We did however make up to the Big Buddha! Standing at one of the highest points on the island the buddha is about 20m tall, still under construction but pretty impressive all the same. Sadly the weather was really closing in so most of the time you could hardly see it for mist.

As the weekend arrived we welcomed Andy and Annie and had a great couple of days catching up with them, enjoying the pool, and eating out (far too much!). On the Saturday night we went to the Tepenyaki (yes it is a favourite of ours!) and had an excellent night, great food, great company, kids had a ball, and it was so good to sit down and catch up on the last five years with Andy and Annie, it was like we had never been apart.

As Andy and Annie headed off home to Bangkok, we took a day trip Sea Kayaking to see the great caves and ‘Hongs’ or internal lagoons within these amazing limestone rock islands. Again the weather wasn’t kind, it was really very hard rain as we set off and  we were a bit concerned as to how the day would go in such weather. But it was amazing, we arrived at the islands and Indi went with Mum while Kai came with me. Now these caves in places are only about 18 inches above the water line so it involved laying flat out and slowly entering these pitch black caves. Well much to our surprise both the kids were really into it, no concerns at all and once in the caves they loved having the torches and discovering all the stalactites, bats, and crystals. Once through and into the Hongs, you were presented with these lagoons full of mangroves and 100m rock faces on all sides, simply breathtaking. We were also treated to Monkeys, crabs, eagles, and in the evening fluorescent plankton!! As part of the trip you get to make a ‘Kratong’ which is a kind of buddhist offering. All made from leaves and flowers, the guides helped us make these beautiful offerings and then once it was dark we lit candles on them and set them off into the sea, it was a wonderful moment.

The one troublesome part to the holiday was Lyra’s continued struggle with her chest, she still had the terrible cough and chest infection that she picked up in Kuwait nearly 3 months ago, as you would expect, she really tried to not let it effect the holiday, but it was really difficult, and to make things worse, she couldn’t taste a thing!

Still a few days left in Phuket and besides enjoying the pool, we had one more trip planned and that was the cultural animal show called Phantasea. We took the bus to the show where we met a great American family that were living in Tokyo, their kids Sarah and Ryan, although a bit older than Indi and Kai got on really well and ended up spending the whole evening together.

The whole set up was amazing, great food buffet, plus a huge fairground. Indi and her new friends took an elephant ride, Kai was having none of it (he still remembers his camel ride in Dubai!) and on the way into the show, Indi and Sarah (and the Mum’s) got to hug a baby tiger!

The show itself was pretty amazing and included, elephants, tigers, chickens, goats, birds, and a bunch of great dancers, right up the kids street!

Still it was time to say goodbye to Phuket, with a firm recommendation from the kids that I should get a job there! We did however, still have one last night in Bangkok! Andy and Annie had kindly offered to out us up for the night and we had a really great time in one of our favourite old restaurants Cabbages and Condom’s, it was still as great as ever. We jumped on a tuk tuk back to the apartment and had one final sleep before heading back home to a very hot Kuwait!

We must say a big thanks to Andy and Annie who’s help and hospitality made it a holiday to remember, thanks guys, let’s not allow 5 years to go by again without meeting up!

So back in Kuwait, I went to work, and Lyra started packing again, this time for the summer trip to England...

I think this is where we will leave it for now, Ly and the kids are having a ball in England, and Lyra’s chest has finally cleared. I am busy at work, but can’t wait to have them back with me again! I’m sure in the next update, there will be lots to tell about their English summer!

Hope you made it to the end, we know they are long, but they are our family diary too, so we want to make sure we capture it all. 

Love to all,

Dan, Ly, Indi and Kai!

Xxxx