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Last weekend while we were in the UAE we hotfooted it down to Abu Dhabi for the day. It was great to look around and see what had changed since we moved away from there in 2003, and it was also terrific to catch up with our old pals Barbie and Marc and their two nippers Megan (seen holding hands with Mitchell below) and four week old Chloe.

One obvious change is the completion (almost) of the Sheikh Zayed mosque. This towering edifice has been under construction for more than ten years, and even now is not completely finished. (Landscaping seems to be taking forever.)

It boggles the mind that in Dubai they can build all of this in less than six years (I kid you not - in 2002 there was only a bare patch of desert there). By contrast the Sheikh Zayed mosque just seems to be taking forever.

The old legend was that it couldn’t be finished while Sheikh Zayed was alive. Well, the old guy’s dead now, so what’s the hold up??

Anyway, here’s a collection of then and now photos. The former set were taken during a private tour of the construction site in 2003.

2003 - - - - - - - - -> 2008

As you can see, it’s a bit fancier these days. In fact, it would be fair to say that it’s anything but subtle. In the central prayer hall that’s the world’s largest carpet and the world’s largest chandelier. Unfortunately some goon decided that Sheridan wasn’t allowed to take her chair onto this famous carpet - which seemed pretty rude and uncharitable for a house of worship. I mean, they let anyone walk on it in their stinky funky socks…

And you know what? I kind of preferred the brutalist style of the unfinished product.

We’ve been back from holidays for only a few weeks, but geez it feels like ages since we had a break away.

So in the spirit of true global wanderers (and at the risk of sounding like overpaid expats), we’re off to Dubai for a long weekend. Sun (well, heat and humidity mostly), sand and shopping. Yay!

See you back online on Tuesday.

You might recall that when we were recently in Siena, Mitchie became obsessed with a cheap pretend camera and took so many “photos” of inane objects that he passed some mystical rite of passage as a Japanese tourist.

I guess this is partly because his old man is constantly banging away with one of several digital cameras.

So the other day, instead of playing with his pretend camera he grabbed hold of our point-and-shoot digi  (the excellent Sony cybershot) and did a bit of amateur photography.

Now I accept that these aren’t award winning photos, but considering we never actually showed him how to use the camera - he just had a go while we weren’t looking, found the shutter button and for the most part managed to avoid obscuring the lens - I reckon they’re not too bad as a first effort.

We’re going to try and find him a super cheap little digi to play with and see if we can hone his photographic skills. Though next I’ll have to teach him the fundamentals of photoshop…

Being very structured people, we’ve got Mitchell into a nice little bedtime routine. First its into the bath, then into pyjamas, then stories sitting with mummy on the story chair, then a few little songs, then into bed.

Simple really.

He’s got a few different books that he likes but at the moment he’s into the Mr Men series. Most often he likes Mr Tall and Mr Tickle. But for a bit of variety, last night mummy read him Mr Sneeze for the first time:

(This was one of my favourite Mr Men books when I was a young nipper.)

Anyway, halfway through the story Mr Sneeze encounters this chap, and as soon as Mitchell saw the picture he yelled out: “Granddad!”

So that’s it dad. You’re famous.

Although today is not Father’s Day in Lebanon, it is in Australia so we thought bugger it, let’s celebrate (afterall, daddy deserves a bit of goodwill from his wee lad!).

This morning I got to sleep in while mummy managed Mitchell, which was a lovely treat. Then it was up for pancakes and bananas for breakfast. Yummo. After a quick call to Granddad in Australia we bundled into the black beast and motored our way up into the mountains.

Our destination for the day was Faqra, situated about an hour from Beirut at an altitude of 1500 metres and home (in winter) to a number of ski resorts.

Faqra’s main sights are the Qa’lat Faqra Roman ruins, and a 50 metre long natural rock bridge which, as you can see from the photos, is popular with abseilers and climbers. The bridge is quite impressive and fortunately there’s a nice little Lebanese restaurant with an outdoor dining area overlooking it. So we settled in for a typically Lebanese meal of humous, tabbouleh, kibbe, sambousik, stuffed vine leaves, grilled chicken wings and a mixed grill (which had the most succulent shish taouk chicken I’ve ever had).

Delightful!

Everytime the little guy gets a haircut, he just seems to look older - more of a big boy and less of our little baby.

Here he is after the latest haircut, and with his own interpretation of cool headwear. Yes, those are undies - clean ones mind you. Nice one dude!

Thankfully, it’s looking like summer might just be starting to wind down. For the past few months it’s been sticky, muggy and pretty darn hot.

But today it was only 28 degrees. Almost time to get the winter woolies out!

At least it hasn’t been as hot as when we were in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, as this (blurry) photo attests (taken at 9.30am on our former balcony in Abu Dhabi).