Tag Archives: Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday: 50 Shades Freed

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There was a stunning sunset behind us on the way home this evening – a big golden ball was hovering on the horizon, lighting up the sky as if lit by fire. I snapped this photo before the sun slipped out of sight and am posting it here as the final installment in my 50 Shades of Yellow series. Below, there’s a much better photo with colours that aren’t so vanilla! (Gasps!)

Midas touch: Love the way our blue car has turned gold. I was crawling along, almost at a standstill, while taking this, so I’m not developing slap-wrist habits on the road, I promise!

Thank you again to ace editor and photographer Elin Boyd for this picture

Look here and here for parts one and two of the trilogy.

Silent Sunday: Fifty Shades Darker

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Following on from my Fifty Shades of Yellow post the other week, here’s the sequel! This is what the sky looks like when a shamal (sandstorm) is being whipped up. Pretty amazing, no? And the best way to ensure a sandstorm appears out of nowhere? Have the car washed. Or leave a window open and go out.

Once again, I have my friend Elin Boyd to thank for the photography

Silent Sunday: 50 Shades of Yellow

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Returning to the Middle East after summer leave is really the only time you see Dubai through the eyes of a tourist. What always strikes me is the colour palette – the yellows, beiges, saffrons, hints of lemon, touches of ochre, seen on the ground, on villas and buildings, and at the beach. They’re such warm, cheerful colours, but best of all, I love the way the city is bathed in almost non-stop golden sunshine.

Sunset over the land of sand, taken by my friend Elin Boyd

Silent Sunday: Picture-perfect England

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Would you believe me if I told you that this is my brother’s office? “It’s very nice,” my mum mentioned, as we crawled along the motorway on a very hot English summer’s day. But, I have to say, I was quite taken aback with just how picture perfect the premises and 180-hectare nature reserve are (he works for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at their headquarters in Bedfordshire).

I got slightly carried away imagining the staff having business picnics complete with home-made lemonade, colourful dragonflies darting around their clipboards and woodland birds pecking on trees. With less than a week to go before we’re back in the desert, I think I’ve got my rose-tinted specs on already.

Not-so-Silent Sunday: Drum roll

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Children’s birthday parties are practically a sport these days and here in Dubai you can host a party on a bus, on a boat, in a limo or at a waterpark. Alternatively, you can have a party at home and hire entertainers, magicians or, I’ll put money on it, even fire eaters or dwarfs.

Sensible parents get sucked in, too, and I did laugh this weekend when I walked out our front door and saw that our neighbours across the road were holding a party that had the potential to cause a right racket. Whether the most unbelievable din was created or not, I’ll never know as it was all over by the time we got home. Brave parents!

I did wonder if they’d given their next-door neighbours a heads-up…

Silent Sunday: The Tardis

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If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that temperatures in the UAE spike in summer, and it gets seriously hot. So imagine my amusement when I saw this egg-shaped walk-in human drying machine on a visit to our neighbouring emirate of Sharjah. For children who get wet playing in the Al Qasba fountain, it lights up with eerie red lights and blasts hot air at you – like the climate doesn’t already do that!

Looks like an alien space capsule, or a sci-fi teleporter, don’t you think?

Silent Sunday: Skyline

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Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, is a sight to behold on any day, but nothing beats seeing it standing tall among its architecturally impressive peers. Each building twists and turns in its own unique way, glinting in the golden sunshine and creating a modern skyline that rises from the desert like a mirage.

Taken with an iPhone from behind the window of our seaplane – through the haze!

Silent Sunday: Glamping, UAE-style

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I’ve discovered the most comfortable tent in the world – at the Banyan Tree Al Wadi resort in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. There were even desert gazelles wondering by. But just wait till you see what else was out the back…

Quite possibly the easiest, most hassle-free camping ever

Silent Saturday

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Bloggers will know this should be ‘Silent Sunday’, but as Sunday is the first day of the working week in the United Arab Emirates, I’m posting one of my favourite photos a day early. I think the recent sandstorms in Dubai may have left sand on my brain – probably blew in through my ears – because I’m sticking with a desert theme. The Arabian Desert, from which the city of Dubai grew, is truly beautiful – some of it punctuated with shrubs and the odd tree, and some of it absolutely pristine.

The Big Boy and me, on top of a sand dune – you can just see the Hajar Mountains (Arabic for stone mountains), which mark the Dubai-Oman border, in the background.