She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand, like a lizard on a window pane (Beatles)

Been a busy few days doing essential things: getting settled in, meeting people, getting the football channel sorted and having a haircut!

Here we are in our natural habitat in our Al Ain abode - surrounded by date palms, mangos and banana palms. We have a couple of roosters and various other wildlife in situ. What are the odds we come to an oasis in the middle of the desert and have roosters waking us up in the morning (a tad too early for Jacky's liking)? The lizard was on our bathroom window - pretty cool huh!

This is the front of our apartments - there are 8 apartments (each with two bathrooms, two bedrooms, kitchen, lounge/dining area) on two floors (we are on the second floor - number 8).

These are the two roosters who live in the garden next door.

Bananas in our front garden.

A gecho on the outside of our bathroom window.


Our lounge/ dining is rather spartan, but Jacky has plans (involving... cushions!).



We intend taking a drive up a local rock formation tomorrow so I'll aim to include some views over our oasis town after that.

Love and peace - Wozza

Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC (Beatles)

We have arrived safely in Dubai after a pretty epic journey that began at 5am yesterday morning in New Zealand with a flight to Auckland. I went for an induction session at Cognition HQ while Jacky went to St Lukes to meet Brian and then Tina. Keegan was able to pick me up after my induction (Cog people were a lovely bunch - I enjoyed catching up with Chris, Jess and Repi - rest of the office were all new people) and deliver me to St Lukes. Fantastic to see them all before we left.

We haven't seen Tina for ages and it was great to catch up! The thing with special friends and shared history is that you can pick up again instantly. It was also our first sighting of her special little guy, Oliver. He's going to be a heart-breaker!

Keegan delivered us to the airport and it was a special thing: being able to say farewell to him. The A380 took us first to Sydney and then, after about 20 hours, we landed safely in Dubai at 5am this morning. Nothing to it when it's written down but 20 hours is 20 hours!

For some reason everybody in the world decided to exit passport control at the same time. We finally made it to the desk to be told that I had to get an eye scan and a new piece of paper from the opposite end of the building (or as the passport guy said, "Corner"). Handy. Another queue and then back for an even longer queue/wait to get a stamp in our passports. All up two and a half hours of standing in line! Ridiculous.

Luckily we were able to get into our hotel room early and had a sleep (we agreed on two hours but ended up snoozing for five). We were both cream crackered. I slept for about 2 hours on the plane and the rest was fitful moving around with eye shades on (not even room for tossing and turning). I did watch the usual procession of movies: Toy Story 3 (fun in spots but enough already); Salt (started out with Bourne style realism and promise but then started getting silly - still a good actioner though); Robin Hood (Ridley and Crowe - again looked fantastic and the action scenes were brilliant. Ridley obviously paying homage to the Saving Private Ryan beach scenes in reverse - the French getting wasted in a beach landing this time). I also spent time listening to music and reading the new Mojo magazine. No matter what you do though, 20 hours on your bum is hardly fun! The care packages given by Samantha and Jade did help us out immensely though - we're still working through the fruit bursts!

We've just been for our first walk back in sand land - gotta love that heat! The mall was like an old friend and we had a lovely meal at Paul's. What a great feeling to be back in the land of polite service and smiling faces (a real contrast to the sullen treatment from the cafes in Auckland airport).

Tomorrow we are being picked up and driven to our new home in Al-Ain (about 90 mins south of Dubai). Stay tuned!

Love and peace - Wozza

Preserve your memories (Simon & Garfunkel)

Time for another round up of old photos: this time it's three of my favourites of the family. The Adam (holding my light metre), Keegan and Wynton one was taken at the Taupo house before the girls came along; the group shot was also a Taupo visit - specifically, the botanic gardens. I especially love this one because it captures us really well in cheeky poses.



This final one is taken at Alpha St in Cambridge - good looking bunch huh?

Love and peace - Wozza

When it's time for leaving, I hope you'll understand - that I was born a ramblin' man (Allman Brothers Band)

A 'thanks' and a 'sorry' are overdue. Many whanau have called recently and opened with, "Oh - you're still here". Well, yes we are. So have a hearty, "thanks for the calls/emails, and sorry for the lack of information recently" back to y'all.

We've been waiting, you see, for our travel plans to become finalised and that has meant waiting for the people in the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) to approve my qualifications. That's now done and so we're off next Thursday (November 11). I have an orientation session in Mt Eden that day and we fly out after that.

Time has been spent saying toodles to the kids, seeing Adam graduate with Keegan (as you saw in the previous post), copying CDs onto the p-pod (nudging 15,000 songs now), loading up the kobo e-reader, visiting Sallie in the Hawke's Bay, watching Bones, reading books in old technology format (to avoid unnecessary luggage), sorting out the broken luggage from the Doha return, watching Arsenal/NFL and the San Francisco Giants win the world series, preventative visits to the dentists and generally listening to the birds and wandering around our gardens.

Now it's time for final preparations and packing up the cases.

Here are some recent snaps from our Wellington visit to see Dookie, Fanfa and Jesse's flat and from those garden wanders. Jesse's home made Giants shirt must have done the trick.





Love and peace - Wozza

No matter where our paths may wind, we'll remember always, graduation day (Beach Boys)

Adam's graduation ceremony took place during the week. Keegan, Jacky and I travelled to Hamilton to celebrate with the boy wonder.




Love and peace - Wozza

Time for a cool change (Little River Band)

Yes - it's that time again! Time for a change. So this is a newsy post.

We've had a busy old couple of days since my last posting. Seems we've sold our house (to a lovely family who live in the Stratford region) and I've accepted another contract with Cognition Education. This means Jacky and I will be returning to the Middle East shortly (early November).

I'll be advising in a school in Al Ain which is in the United Arab Emirates. Jacky is looking to continue her nursing there too; I also want to continue with my research proposal through Waikato University - so we should be busy.

Our other energy has been in trying to find a house to live in when we return to Nu Zild in the future. Our focus has been the Hawke's Bay and Manawatu regions. No luck as yet, although we've seen a couple of possible places: one east of Waipawa; and one in Waipukarau. No huge hurry as our settlement day is Jan 28, 2011. This allows Jade to stay in the house and look after the animals until Jacky can return to NZ for Xmas.

Of late I've been getting all the documents ready for the move and we have Adam's graduation to attend tomorrow. So we're off to Hamilton...now!

Love and peace - Wozza

Don't ever change people even if you can.(Jefferson Airplane)

I very very very rarely read two books at once. I just can't hold the concentration. If I've ever done it, it's because one of them isn't doing it for me, so I slip into something a little more comfortable.

I can't recall ever reading two really engrossing books at once. Never happens. If I'm engrossed, I become consumed by the world inside the book and don't want to leave. It has always been thus.

How 'bout three? Impossible. Inconceivable.

Well I thought so...until right now.

Somehow I find myself doing the impossible - reading three superb books at the same time!!!

The three in question are: The Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle) which I'm reading on my Kobo e-reader; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson) and Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss). These last two are being read in old technology.

How did this happen? Well it helps that I'm in the middle of the longest holiday I've ever had (I haven't been employed since the end of July and I've been reading A LOT).

Of course, it's impossible to actually read three books at once. The eyes can only focus on and decode one set of symbols at a time. Trendy bookish people usually say they have three 'on the go'.

I've taken to alternating each book, a chapter at a time. It's quite tough leaving the old one, picking up the new book and re-engaging with the narrative. But somehow the style differences in my three choices make it easy to do. I actually look forward to each book in turn.

The Lost World is a bit of a revelation. I love the lost world premise and previously I've read the Edgar Rice Burroughs' books on the theme (The Lost Continent) but had no idea Conan Doyle had a similar story to tell. It is delightfully dated in style, but very cinematic. I was stunned to find a film version in a recent gander through the Warehouse's DVDs. Cost $2.99 and stars Patrick Bergin (mmm - who?). I want to wait until I've finished the book before I take a look. I'm hoping it's delightfully dated in style as well.

Sallie kindly lent me a number of books recently - three Lynne Truss books and the three parts to The Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the first). She warned me that it took her about 50 pages to really get hooked. I liked the novel from the start but I fell in love at page 82 when the thriller/who dunnit plot is firmly established. I am finding that I am increasingly drawn to books written in translation (in this case from Swedish). The language takes on some new and interesting twists!

Speaking of language - Lynne Truss has the market cornered on quirky books on manners and stickler hood. She is definitely becoming the patron saint of sticklers everywhere. I am one of those people who laments the death of the apostrophe (and if it's not dead, it sure smells funny). I hate inappropriately written shop signs with a passion and I have taken to actively correcting the errors on menus and the like (menu's anyone?). I can't change the inner pedant!

Okay - enough blogging - I need to get back to Mr Malone, Mr Blomkvist and Miss Demeanour (she of the failed punctuation).

Love and Peace - Wozza