Maintenance

You can imagine how unimpressed I was when just as I was mid-omelette I received a call from the cleaning company to say that the cleaners had now arrived at our villa. In these parts of the world, they are either 4 hours early, 4 hours late or don't come at all, so it truly was to be expected. So after a bit of a fiery exchange (mainly because I was peeved I had to cut my breakfast short), the giant and I got in our hire car and headed to our place. There was a huge truck parked across our driveway and a 7 piece band, with cleaning instruments in hand, ready to play 'Operation Clean-up' in b minor. I've heard of an intensive clean with 2 maids at once, but 7? That's 35 man hours. Oh well, at least it will be a thorough clean and as the previous tenants were cat owners and to avoid the attack of the cat eye that a few of you have seen before, all feline hairs must be exterminated.

One of my skills that has really come in handy living in this part of the world are my ESL skills. I watch the giant trying to communicate with his huge vocabulary and long words and enjoy coming in to save the day with my preciseness and outstanding communicative language skills. For example, why say "the objective is to make them identical" when "make same" and a hand gesture will suffice? Mr Giant is learning, very patiently, but learning and asks for an assessment of his ESL skills after each encounter. We were talking just yesterday about how easy it is to get angry and frustrated at people because they don't understand you, especially when you are now talking to the 10th person who still doesn't know what you're talking about, but if I could speak as much Arabic as they could English, I'd be pretty impressed with myself. Reminds one to be patient...

So we’ve been waiting for maintenance to come to our villa all day. They were supposed to come yesterday at 2pm, and when I called at 2:15pm, the man in his limited English said “10 minutes... 4 o’clock”. Well what will it be partner? So I repeated and tried to get confirmation whether it was going to be “10 minutes” or “4 o’clock” to which he responded “ok -15 minutes”. What more can I say, ok that will do. True to his word, in 15 minutes he called and said “good afternoon” and wouldn’t continue until I also said “good afternoon” and then said “I am outside”. Outside of where I soon learnt, neither he nor I knew. The funny thing is that his boss owns this place, and as I understood it he was the maintenece guy for it, and yet even he had no idea how to get here. To cut a long story short, he went to a few more complexes somewhere else in Abu Dhabi and kept ringing and saying "hello I outside". In the end he didn’t end up getting anywhere closer to where we were until 4pm. I kept chasing him on the phone and when you call his number, instead of a “ring ring” he has an Arabic love song which I now know off by heart. Eventually we had to drive to a close by landmark where we both met and led the way for him back to our place. When we met him, I thought he’d be in a utility truck with all his tools of trade, but instead he was in a family SUV... with his entire family. He later told me he was in a hurry because they were on the way to a picnic. I thought he was bringing a ladder and putty filler to fix things, instead, he came with a picnic rug and quickly came in to check it all out. He said he woul send maintenance tomorrow- I still don’t quite know how this little man fits in to the equation although he is very sweet. So today he said maintenance would be there at 9am. We were there at 8:30am for the cleaners (as I have explained above) so I gave him a little extra time and rang at about 10 and he said “ok I come in 10 minutes”. He turned up and looked around at the men and he looked at me and said “no maintenance?” to which I responded “no maintenance”. Seeming a little peeved, he left and I didn’t hear from him until I rang later in the afternoon. We exchanged “good afternoon”s, and he said that maintenance would be there at 7pm. It’s now 8:30pm, I’m in bed at the Shangri La and still no sign. Rang and sang along to the love song a few times, but alas no response. Oh well tomorrow is another day.

I now remember all this from moving into Dubai only a year ago. Its all coming back to me now.

I am not an athlete, nor have I ever purported to be one...

Today we went shopping for some tennis racquets. Sporting equipment I hear you say? What else can I say, but first comes love, then comes marriage then comes matching sporting equipment. We have now moved into a compound that has tennis and squash courts, so to be precise, we not only took some of Sir Dunlop's finest tennis racquets to the counter, but also some of his finest squash racquets as well. We were supposed to be staying at the Shangri La for only 2 nights or so, but because of a few minor issues such as no water, aircon or beds in our villa, we have unfortunately had to extend our stay in this five star hotel until it our villa is liveable. I am ropeable as you could imagine.

I feared for the worst when we reached the tennis courts this morning. I know the giant well and that he is quite a competitive soul when it comes to sport. I have seen it many a time but our clay pigeon shooting adventure in Dubai was only so fresh in my memory. Let's just say, the giant strives for perfection- quite literally in everything that he does. Don't get me wrong, I do have a very fine eye for detail as well and do respect and appreciate perfection (which is what makes us quite an excellent pair), but Mr Giant takes it to a new level. It took him a whole day to format the fonts and spacing on our wedding church booklet- Although he was also supposed to achieve six other things that day, it did look lovely in the end, so thank you fair giant.

So, when is it quite the right time to break the news to this competitive sportsman that I have now married that sport and I don't go together quite harmoniously as say, peas and pods, eggs and bacon and champagne and I? Was now a good time to let him know that it was more sport for me to come up with new excuses every week to get out of swimming or PE when I was at school than actually doing it?

And so, here we were. Midday. The white desert sun right above us. Lets just say that cocktails by the pool at the Shangri La were a little more enticing than the offer of running around at midday chasing a tennis ball on a day like today. The giant and I had never played tennis together before, in fact we hadn't done much competitive sport together to be perfectly honest- well except clay pigeon shooting as I mentioned before, which I am actually quite good at. I put it down to all those years playing Duck Hunt with the gun on Nintendo. I must say here, that he was very impressed with shooting skills and didn't see it coming. I did say that he may be just as impressed with my tennis skills, but look, its been a while between drinks lets be fair, so neither one of us were holding our breath, although seceretly I was hoping the Serena, Venus or Lleyton within would shine through.

So there we were- in matching his and hers gym clothes- a set for a giant, a set for a midget. Knowing how he is and his sportsman expectations, I gently explained to him, still in the car with the AC on (that's how I roll in the desert), that I was not a target and that we need not pretend to be professionals and see if we can hit the ball at 200kms an hour and that it would be more fun for both of us and better exercise if we play gently and hit to each other. Well that fell upon deaf ears didn't it! A gentle volley lasted for about 2 balls and he then found it even more fun to see me run from one side to the other side as I responded to the spin on his serves. Reminder 1. I am not an athlete and have never purported to be.

The heat was killing me, my mouth was sticky, and hey I'm not going to lie to you I haven't done much exercise in about a month, so I retreated to the club house for some water and some fresh AC. Found the squash court, set the AC to as low as it would go and returned to the giant that was pegging balls into the net. Just as I thought I would find him. I persuaded him to come inside to the squash court, and my goodness that sport is dangerous on the other end of the giant's mighty arm. I just couldn't stop laughing as he got more peeved at me for not being focused. I understand- we're just at different levels. If this was netball, he'd be in the the A's and I'd be in the D's or even E's if numbers allowed, where I belong. Eventually we both were on the same wavelength and agreed to a friendly.

Enough blogging for now. I am now enjoying the fruits of the vine at the Shang and taking in the most amazing suset and view over the grand mosque. Truly truly breath taking, although a little scary when black hawks fly over. Promise I haven't forgotten to write about all those things that I mentioned before, like my wedding, I promise!

PS. before I go, I miss you all very much. A month was way too long to be back - I get too emotional- but at the same time I'm sorry if I didn't really get to see you or spend time with you! Got way too used to being home, but might also be finding it hard again here because its like starting all over again. However at least I have brilliant friends only an hour away (the distance keeps getting shorter and shorter). At the end of the day however, it makes me love and miss you all more and realise where home will always be. Looking forward to hosting you all for Thursday night drinks at mine when we get back. As for my Dubai friends, its still on if you're willing to make the trek. We have beds and canapes here with your names on them!