Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line (Bruce Springsteen)

Ever wondered how they change tyres in the arabic world? You will not believe your eyes!!! By the way: the guy in the blue hat is the driver and the arabic in the bottom right says impossible, although clearly it isn't.



Love and peace from sand land - Abu Keegan

I turn but do not extricate myself. (Walt Whitman)

I was able to collect up some of my old poetry books before their move into storage (our house in Nu Zild has been sold and all our gear is now in storage in Taranaki). One of the first things I was glad to have back was A Choice Of Whitman's Verse. I've owned this since 1979 and I have felt the need to reread some of Walt's poetry lately.

A phrase from his poem The Sleepers resonates long and loud with me at present:

The soul is always beautiful,
the universe is duly in order...everything is in its place,
What is arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place.

I really like this as it chimes with what I've read from buddhist teachings. It reminds me of the maple leaf (I know I mention this a lot - check back through the posts if you don't believe me). Once it is free of the tree the leaf will float to wherever it is destined to go. No amount of worry or mental torture and wishing will influence the direction of the leaf.

This is a helpful belief for me - the universe is in order and everything is in its place. Things in my life have happened in accordance with the will of the universe and what is to come is also in order. This is a serene thought. I like it. It works for me!

I have tried to communicate this idea to family members over the years and I have to accept that while it gives me peace - it doesn't fulfil the needs of others. That's fine I guess.

Oh, by the way: from Patrick's initial push - I've decided to grow my hair long - the flattop years are over.

Love and peace - Wozza

I'm dizzy from the shopping malls (John Mayer)

A rare week for me - it contained two days off work with flu like symptoms: sore throat, slight temperature, achy muscles and a raw cough (too many details?).

I think the cocktail of bugs on the underground in London gave me (and of course Jacky) this icky feeling. I persevered at work for three days (Sunday to Tuesday) but then couldn't do it any more and so had two days off.

The rest gave us a chance to watch Downton Abbey on DVD (a present from Randy and Patrick) - an awesome period drama with a similar dramatic feel to Upstairs Downstairs. Brilliantly written, acted and shot in a huge country house. It had us captivated for two days of non stop viewing.

Feeling better now and back at work today (after watching a dreadful Arsenal display last night in the FA Cup game against Leeds - we were lucky to escape with a draw).

Love and peace - Wozza

(P.S. Jade pointed out there were three orgy references in my Christmas post - sorry 'bout that and thanks for the card Christine - it's now in a frame!)

Take your passion, and make it happen (Irene Cara)

My oh my - what a holiday! Where to start, where to start?

(Warning - travelogue with slides is coming).




AL AIN - DUBAI
The holiday was a bit of an epic - starting with a taxi to the free Emirates bus in Al Ain and then the bus trip to Dubai a few days before Christmas.

Jacky can sniff out equine interests much like I have a radar for Beatle products. The building behind her is an entrance to the Dubai metro station.

We had fun riding the Dubai metro (clean, quiet, efficient) from Khalid Bin Al Waheed station to the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall station, wandering around the giant Dubai mall, and walking past the Burj Khalifa on the way (it's the world's tallest building - so big it hurt my neck to look all the way up to the top of the building from the bottom).

The light from the sun behind the Burj left a weird surreal kind of shadow in its wake.

DUBAI MALL

The Dubai mall has some amazing features. I believe it's the biggest mall in the world - we spent a whole day in it and didn't see it all; it's, if anything, too big, in that we didn't know where to start and we got ourselves lost quite a lot

There are many specialist malls within the mall: for instance there is a gold souq and a fashion wing with all the swanky brands including a Stella McCartney shop with prices to match the exclusivity. If you want to buy some fine art this is also the place to go (Picasso anyone?).

There are the usual things like children's fun parks (Sega Republic), cinemas, food courts but vast areas are also devoted to various arty installations like the divers going down the waterfall. The photo above shows just part of a massive waterfall wall. It is staggeringly beautiful and effective, in that it induces calm and how's that serenity amid the consumer orgy happening all around it. The mall's bookshop is worth talking about. It's the size of a mall in itself with, it seems, ever book known to mankind. I took Jacky in just to show her the enormity of it. Amazing.

The bookshop contains its own coffee shop/restaurant with a fabulous view over the lake and fountain area.

This one is for Samantha (she would have loved to roam around the Converse shop).

This one is for Ross - a huge model shop containing some huge models (the scale is provided by the tiny human in the background)!

Jacky and I ventured into the aquarium and underwater zoo at the mall - the aquarium is a very impressive fish tank (can you picture a tank holding 10 million litres of water? In a mall??), that contains a huge number of fish (over 33 thousand), including sharks of all varieties, various rays and the odd scuba diver vacuuming its floor.

DUBAI - LONDON
All the while in Dubai we kept an eye on the UK weather. Heathrow was closed and the snowfalls looked like they may put our trip in jeopardy. We crossed our fingers and hopped on the plane to London.

Flying into Heathrow on Dec 23 was no problem in the end - the snow had stopped falling and although the ground was frozen, we landed safely.

HEATHROW - HIGHBURY/ISLINGTON
Phase 2 was the trip to Highbury/Islington station via the underground. By the time we got there it was night time and cold. We had no cell phone reception to ring Patrick nor could we find a taxi so we lugged our cases through the snow and ice to Ferntower Rd (aka The Shire) - Randy and Pat's fantastic home that is minutes away from the Emirates stadium. Thanks so much for allowing us to stay and share your ohfabuloso Christmas with us!!

First point of business was a walk to Emirates to stock up on shirts, a tie and hopefully tickets to the Chelsea/Arsenal game later in the week. Sadly the game was a sell out so we bought our stuff (Patrick not only entered the Armory but bought some (holy) water as well) and planned on seeing the game at a local pub instead.

CHRISTMAS IN THE SHIRE
Christmas eve and Christmas day are a bit of a blur (especially for Jacky who had a severe migraine on Christmas eve).

Breakfast on Christmas morning in the Ferntower kitchen.

Randy and Pat are great social bizzy bees with a large network of friends. The house was buzzing with people for two days and we had a triffic time meeting everyone. Meals were provided by one of their friends - Sean - who is one of London's top chefs. I chatted to him as I cleaned up dishes and peeled potatoes and prepared Brussel Sprouts for him (mmm - you read that right) and was awed to hear him talk about cooking for Kate Moss, Heather Mills and Paul McCartney!!!!! (I'm furiously fanning my face even now). I-stood-next-to-someone-who-stood-next-to-Paul-McCartney!!!

The man who stood next to Macca preparing our Christmas repaste.

My before and after plate tells its own story.

Of course there were presents aplenty to unpack for Wozza, Randy and Pat and the various guests:







Pat and Randy promised us a fun Christmas and they didn't let us down. It was like no other Christmas I've ever experienced. For one thing our own families were missing (they had already celebrated their day while we slept through Christmas Eve night) and that was weird. We've never had a Christmas away from Keegan, Adam, Samantha, Jade and the inlaws.

Although we were missing them, thanks to Pat and Randy and their fabulous friends we had a great Christmas day anyway.

Pat and friend Presley thrust us all into a sing song around the piano (note the Taranaki landscape in the background) and we sang, laughed, played games and were very merry indeed. Presley is blessed with an amazing voice - Jacky and I loved listening to him.

Later in the evening we repaired to the red lounge to exchange secret Santa gifts (the most stylish/ornate/fascinating secret Santa EVER undertaken) and to then watch a movie chosen by friend Stewart - Mommie Dearest!!

Stewart knows the film reasonably well. After about 40 viewings (by his reckoning) he is able to recite the dialogue along the way (not just some, but ALL the dialogue). As Pat said to me - this has got to be your gayest Christmas ever, to which I replied, "No contest".

Oh BTW - did I mention I won the gay quiz? Seems my knowledge of Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Mel Torme, Madonna, Judy Garland and Gloria Gaynor has finally come in handy. Pat reckons I'm only straightened on the gayometer by my love of football and Ted Nugent.

BOXING DAY
Boxing day was a late breakfast and a trip to Oxford St to check out the sales. There was a tube strike on that day but Oxford St and the buses were jammed! Without having phones Jacky and I got ourselves separated for a few hours which was very unsettling so, when finally reunited, we decided to find a Carphone Warehouse and get some SIM cards. It was then back to Highbury to watch the game. In another first - Jacky watched the whole game with me in the Nobody Inn pub with a noisy crowd of fellow gooners. We won 3-1 and happily spilled out of the pub towards the shire (about 50 yards away!).

LONDON TOWN
Being in London I had to visit FOPP and HMV (the Virgin Megastores have closed up shop) HMV in particular was manic. I had to head to the bottom floor's jazz and classical section to get some quiet thinking time.

We decided to see some shows while we could; and hummed and haaaed before plumping for Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Flashdance (they seemed appropriate and we wanted to keep the theme going). Pat said we'd love Priscilla and so it proved to be - a riot of OTT visuals, music and terrible risque jokes! Flashdance isn't in the same camp - more dancing and an attempt at a dramatic story (which Priscilla doesn't even pretend to have) and excellent in its own way.

After all this excess (and I haven't even mentioned the orgy of mushy peas and cod dinners I got through) we took our last tearful journey on the tube (I LOVE the tube) to Heathrow and home via another stopover in Dubai. We left London at night and not sleeping on the plane meant that I missed a lot of zzzzs.

An awesome holiday and today I'm back at work - feeling a little shattered to be back in the saddle after a surreal trip back to blighty.

Now I have a fresh load of CDs and DVDs to plow through over the next few months (see the music blog for details).

Love and peace and why does Santa have three gardens? (because he needs to ho ho ho) - Wozza

P.S. If you've read this far you deserve a treat: so here's a nude shot of Wozza and Pat and Randy's cat - Tiki - having fun in the bath!

And so this is Christmas (John and Yoko)

Merry Christmas to all my whanau and readers from the blogosphere. And wasn't it lovely that two thoughtful members of the Argentinian football team should pose by our tree with santa in a globe!

Love and peace - Wozza

Got my mojo workin' (Muddy Waters)

Who knew that moderation meetings could be such fun?

The students have sat formal assessments (tests) this week in Arabic, English, Islamic studies, science and maths. Of course it is necessary to have moderation meetings to guarantee some consistency between the markers.

In my NZ and UK experience, these take place after the marking has happened and then marks are supposedly adjusted. But this is always a haphazard process, very unscientific and of little benefit to anyone.

Here I have stipulated that the moderation meetings take place BEFORE the staff get into marking.

I've had two of them - one with the English Dept and one with the Arabic teachers (until I have a full team in place I am advising both of these faculties). Both were exceptionally positive and fun experiences. The English one resulted in some great vociferous debate from the English teachers before we could settle on some benchmark papers.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera but I remembered for the Arabic meeting. This one was of equal value but with Abdulla's input it was also screamingly funny. Left to right, in the two photos below, we have Abdul, Shaban, me, Abdulla, Farraj (Salem is the 5th member and he's seen in a photo below). Also pictured (in the photo immediately above) are Nadal and Khalifa who helped me out with translation and advice.

After the meeting the teachers are relieved of their normal timetable and stay at school until they have finished marking!! So, on Monday, five English teachers marked 200 scripts after our moderation took place and on Tuesday it was the five Arabic teachers' turn. The next day all scripts were checked by other faculty members. A very robust system all around.

I was both fascinated and impressed by the organisation and smooth operation.

We learnt a lot from each other and isn't that what it's all about?

Smokestack lightnin', can't ya hear me callin' (Howlin' Wolf)

I went to my first staff do in Al Ain last week - a BBQ picnic style affair at a place called Green Mubazzarah. It's a weird place in the foothills of Jebel Hafeet (the mountain that overlooks Al Ain). Apparently the Sheikh (the one with the palace on top of the mountain) looked down from his palace one day and decided he wanted to see some green as part of his view so he had Green Mubazzarah created. Who knows.

What I do know is they have completed this supposed vision in amazing style. Essentially it's an area of hot springs and water that irrigates the mountain and it's become a huge picnic destination for the people of Al Ain. And that's where we went for our staff picnic.

I, of course, got lost in it looking for my guys. After doing a slow tour of the area (huge children's playgrounds included) I remembered that I had some of the staff's phone numbers in my mobile.

The staff take it in turns to organise and cook the meals. The Jordanian staff were responsible for this one. I really enjoyed it - both the company of these guys (who don't speak a lot of English) and the food. They cooked fish and vegetables for me because they know I don't eat goat, and brought loads of fruit, so I was fine. Generally I am out of my comfort zone with meals in foreign lands - eating with fingers is tough (the fish was HOT off the BBQ), and the types of food on offer can sometimes be a real challenge to my taste buds (which are pretty bland).

The photos give a glimpse of some of the attendees. Wozza is easy to spot - look for the one in the Beatle t-shirt

In keeping with the food theme - Pat and Randy have promised a FUN Christmas for us in North London (hopefully involving knives and forks). Basically it's only about 7 hours to London from Dubai so we decided on a white Christmas this year. Arsenal are playing at home against Chelski on the 27th as well and I'm aiming to get Jacky along to see the best football team in the world battle the boys from the bridge. And beat them, inshallah. We'll leave the UAE on the 23rd and return in time for school to start the next trimester on January 2.

Love and peace - Wozza