A Knitting Parcel from Heaven

(Well, it is from an angel at the very least!!)

A RAK parcel came today - completely out of the blue (the VERY best kind!!) It felt like Christmas, my birthday and Chinese New Year all rolled into one. Look what the angel sent me :
Firstly, notice the exquisite box - it screams class, but it also screamed "Open me, open me, open me ..."

Okay, I admit, I ripped into the box with my car keys, there and then - in the car park - well, there was NO WAY I was going to wait until I got home - forgetaboudit.

A bag with not one, not two, but three skeins/hanks of THE most incredible sock yarn - ACTUAL, REAL sock yarn. (I have never seen a skein of anything in real life, and I have never seen or felt or smelt or snuggled real, live sock yarn. (But I did today - right there in the PO car park - with a glazed look of love on my face, too!!)

Then out popped some dpns - bamboo, no less - never seen those before either!! And two circular needles to play with and a really useful booklet for notes on my adventures in sock knitting land. Oh, oh, oh..... it couldn't get any better, could it? .... it all smelt so delicious - just like honey, why? Because the angel had added some Bee Bar lotion too.

DD and I had a tug of war over possession of the plastic carrier bag - the little brat won!





Then we fought over the yarn - hah, this time I won!



And the yarn is now sitting on my laptop, where I can see it and snuggle it while I surf!!



Thank you Lori aka Crazyknits - you are simply the best!!

Abu Dhabi Heritage Crafts

A recent visit to the Heritage Craft Village intrigued those of us with an obsession with handmade craft objects .....

Like this guy (who was up to his neck in weaving!) :

A Work In Progress

Samples of beautiful woven silks :

Looms for making larger tapestries and carpets :

The finished products

Still knitting .....

Another Yum Yum

ONION juice??

Do you want your card swiped?

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "swiped" .....

The kitty gets a new toy ...

A story with pictures!

Once upon a time there was a Princess ... (aka Brat Cat)

One day the Princess asked her humom to make her a nice knitted toy ...

"Please make me a nice knitted toy, please, please, pleeeez"














"You feel sleepy, you will make me a nice knitted toy ..."















"I WANT A NICE KNITTED TOY!"















"MY TOY!!"














"MY toy!!"














"DESTROY MY TOY!!"














"Oops ..."















"It is so tiring being a Princess ..."














The End !!

Let's eat out ... yumm-o

Some of the interesting menus we have seen lately ....

Prince Charles and his Camil

So, Prince Charles and Camilla came to visit us in Abu Dhabi (just for one day, but what the heck ...) And they drove past OUR house, and WE SAW THEM (from the window of the 14th floor, but what the heck ...) And here are the photos to prove it .....

First, the cops blocked off the intersection ...
That's HIM in the first black car ...














Closely followed by his personal ambulance (right side of photo) and then (presumably) some bodyguards ...

And some more bodyguards ...














And some more bodyguards ... and finally the cops ...

Then the excitement was over
and life returned to "normal" once again.

Fame at last !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zan8Xnq5-30

Did you spot the whirling South African dervishes swinging pillows ?????
Not sure why they fuzzed our faces - perhaps to protect the innocent involved...!!

Pillow Fighting - and FAME

Recently a group called Foresight (www.foresightpillowfight.org/?page_id=5) organised a Guinness Record breaking attempt to hold the biggest pillow fight. They were hoping for 5000 participants - so DD and I joined in (who can resist a good pillow fight??)

It started out in an orderly(??) fashion, with the handing out of pillows to participants ....

But, BEFORE the start of the actual fight, things quickly deteriorated into a free-for-all, a a certain person (who shall remain nameless on this blog!) couldn't contain the urge to bash the sh*t out of someone smaller ....

until, exhausted from showing the DD who is the boss, he finally collapsed on said pillow ...




THEN, the actual fight began .....















It only lasted for 1 minute, but was the most fun I have had with a pillow since I was a teenager .......!!!

Afterwards, we drove away feeling exhausted, stress-less and knowing that we would be famous one day - so, when you see the biggest pillowfight listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, YOU can say : I know someone who was there ......

... and a baby blanket ...

More Jerseys for Jack

Shhhh .... knit happens .....

This is why I have been TBTB (Too Busy To Blog) for a while ...

Someone asked me to knit some jerseys for her first grandchild. What fun it was - casting on 20 stitches instead of 120! BTW congratulations Janet on baby Jack ... have fun spoiling him.

Souf Effrican sense of humour

I just love our sense of humour - we found these on holiday too .....

I'm confused ......

Watching the news on Iraq, where the Sunni's and the Shia are having a go at each other, I got to thinking .... which sect are the UAE Moslems? I mean, it's like a rugby match - you've gotta support the right team, right?

So I looked it up .... big mistake!! Hours later I was still none the wiser. These guys have more divisions than a Matric maths class. It's no wonder they don't get along too well.

Let me see if I have got it right .... It seems that "the religion of Islam has many divisions, sects, schools, traditions, and related faiths." No kidding!!From http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Major Branches
1.1 Sunni
1.2 Shi`a
1.3 Sufi
2 Sunni schools of thought
2.1 Hanafi
2.2 Hanbali
2.3 Maliki
2.4 Shafi'i
3 Shi'a Sects
3.1 Jafari
3.2 Ismailiyah
3.3 Zaiddiyah
3.4 Alawi
3.5 Alevi
3.6 Bohras
4 Sufi Orders
4.1 Bektashi
4.2 Chishti
4.3 Naqshbandi
4.4 Oveyssi
4.5 Qadiri
4.6 Suhrawardiyya
5 Kharijite Sects
5.1 Ibadi
5.2 Sufri
6 Kalam Schools
6.1 Ash'ari
6.2 Maturidi
6.3 Murjite
6.4 Mu'tazili
7 Movements within sects
7.1 Barelwi
7.2 Deobandi
7.3 Salafism
7.4 Wahhabism
7.5 Liberals
7.6 Islamism
7.7 Tablighi Jama'at
8 Other sects
8.1 Zikri
8.2 Ahmadiyya
8.3 Moorish Science
8.4 Nation of Islam
9 Related Faiths
9.1 Yazidi
9.2 Druze
9.3 Bábism
9.4 Bahá'í
9.5 Sikhism
9.6 Submitters
9.7 Five Percenters

Wikipedia - understanding that most of us are completely befuddled by now, also provide a world map of the types of Islam .....


But, if you look at the colour of the UAE's section, you will see that it is a completely different shade to the rest of the world and/or the key .... wha??

Ok, now I am dazed and confused ... and completely deurmekaar ... can someone please help me?

Back from Beyond

The lovely holiday home is now a distant memory ... but as it has taken me all this time to get out of my "there's nothing to blog about" phase, here are some of the memories we made this time ...

When you fly Business Class,

you get your own "Pod"!! - no neighbours!!

Rolling grass covered hills in Natal

A festive Christmas table