Wow what a strange few weeks.
The last 10 days I have met on the internet, two people from my past.

One is fellow blogger Umm Qahtan.
I follow her blog, she follows mine, two strangers (or so we thought) in the blogging world. After my post about come join me on Facebook, she took up the challenge (Thanks Allah).
I posted the handful of photos I have left of my time in UAE and BINGO, Umm Qahtan recognised me from years ago.
It took a while for me to remember who she was becuase all the bad things that happened to me there, were at the forefront of my mind pushing the good memories into the back.

After letting me rack my brains for a while I kind of rememberd a scenario of 3 girls on a Balcony in Ajman. I got it right and the memories came flooding back.
All those years ago, after I had left "0", my best friend at the time "Faye" asked if she could bring someone to meet me. That afternoon in walked Umm Qahtan and us 3 girls sat on my Balcony overlooking the Ajman Port, talking about A-Z, I apparently gave good words of Wisdom which remain and will always remain between me and Umm Qahtan only and I gave her a Quran and believe I also gave some advice on being a muslim.

So we are back in touch, who would have thought the internet could suprizingly conect two people after years. Allah is Great Wallahi.

Second person is someone I used to work with who absolutly worshipped the ground I walked on and who's heart I broke at the time when I left to live in UAE. So despite the bad things about the Internet, it can at times be absolutly Brilliant.

As for home life right now, its not good, but despite the problems and out of respect for my husband I will not go into detail until I am able to. But all I will say is that I wish men would respect women more and marry them for the right reason.

Have a good week everyone.

Well as soon as Iftar arrives tonight we begin Eid.

Yes I love Facebook.
Its my way to keep in touch with family and friends especially friends of old.
Join me on Facebook if you want, although I will most likely only accept requests if I have at least read your blog or know you have read mine.

Have any of you ever browsed some of those muslim matrimonial websites?
Sometimes for fun I go browse the profiles and it amazes me some of the photos "Muslim" women looking for a husband post.

Sexy shots with bare shoulders and peroxide blonde hair falling over their shoulders, half a pound of muck on their faces. One I saw today was an American woman with a Dolly Parton hairdo complete with huge Tiara, bare shoulders and all.
Not a very good advert really to be posed like a playboy playmate looking for your muslim mate.
As I posted about in my previous blog post, what is it with women outside of the Middle East wanting a UAE national only????? Whats wrong with any good muslim man? What do they think their going to get marrying UAE only (well I can guess what they think they will get).
Most who post ads for "UAE only" also have photos that are more suited to a fashion magazine. If they are trying to attract the guys looking for a goodtime girl (but not marraige at the end) they are probably going to get lucky. But for real marraige material, I dont think they will find what they are looking for.

Now the men on those sites are something else.
I once put an ad on Qiran.com a few years ago. I had a pic of me in Hijab and the amount of sleezy men on there was amazing. I remember one local guy from AD started using the chat system with me and he was basically looking for a good time girl. He claimed he wanted to marry me 30 mins into chatting and then he began to talk about his love of backdoor exploring and how this was a must for him if he married me. I sat there looking at my computer just laughing. I ended up just signing off, blocking him but I am sure some silly little Wannabee took him up on his offer to meet up for a taster session.

Dont get me wrong its not just sleezy Gulf guys out there, no, no, no. The amount of men (mainly from Middle East/Pakistan) who tried to chat and then tried to turn the convo into a free cyber porn session was unbelievable. Is asking a woman what her breast size is really Islamic?
Are these guys not afraid of Allah??? If they want a woman just for a quick bit of jiggery then I would imagine something like xxxxbuddy.com would be more up their street.

Then you have guys who post a pic of themselves dressed like a Khaleeji, put their details as being from UAE/Qatar etc and then you actually find out they are infact Egyptian/Indian etc, who happens to work in an office or something in UAE. Have they clicked onto the fact that a lot of women seek Khaleeji men only and they hope the women do not study their profile too hard where it actually states they have a visa not permanent status and that their photo dressed in thobe etc will draw the girls to them?.

Ok, many meet and marry their spouse via them successfully, but I am wondering how many idiots they had to wade through before they found him. I am sure most women can honestly say they had their fair share of sleeze bags contact them, either passport/visa seekers or someone wanting a bit of dirty chat or someone wanting to try them out first. Unless I just attracted those types.

Do the women who advertise on there think they wont get lucky unless they post the glamour shot???. And what is it with the hair dyed blonde? Having owned my own salon I can spot a brunette dyed blonde from a mile off.

Maybe I am just being mean, but actually a non muslim friend of mine also had the same opinion as me about some of the profile pics when they browsed some of the sites just out of interest.

I am going to let my heart go now and do not care if I offend, because what I say is the truth.
Going back to UAE was a real eye opener for me.
How could I have been so blind to the many things that are so wrong in the country I once loved and thought I would live in until I died.

Maybe it was because of the privileged life I had. I can honestly say virtually all my social circle at that point in time was an Emirati VIP in one way of the other. "O" used to be an ex Minister of Labour, then add a few Shiekhs and government people such as a Director of Civil Defence (now ex) etc etc to the list. I was kind of oblivious to the things there that in other countries would be classed as corruption and a violation of human rights.

I used to sit daily and watch "O" help so many people who all wanted "Wasta" in one form or the other. When I first arrived in UAE I used to recieve endless calls from people looking for him to help them, it used to drive me mad.
"O" once told me that when he was Minister of Labour and his close friend "A" was Minister of Immigration that they were treated like Kings by the expat community and locals alike. Without Labour and Immigration you could not really do anything in UAE. Even when he left that position and became something else (which I cant really mention), people still continued to ask him to cut corners and do things for them that had been refused by the powers that be.

In my 13 years in UAE I never once used my connections to benefit myself. "O" was adament that I did everything the right way. When I went to take my driving test he told me all he had to do was arrange it so I passed even if my driving was totally crap, but he refused to do that. He said I had to sit the test like anyone else and if I failed I had to try again. I did fail first time but when I passed the second time I knew I had done it on my own merits without any "Wasta" or backdoor dealings.

So like "O" I detest people that try to use "Wasta" to get what they want and even worse is people who brag that they got something via "Wasta". To me using "Wasta" is nothing more than corruption. Sorry but that is my personal opinion. And it still continues today and I saw some of it while I was there this time, but instead of being annoyed like I was when I lived there, I actually found it totally disgusted me this time.

If "O" was still alive today I know he would have helped my husbands family get their UAE Nationality and get their UAE passports back, he would have done it because he had the connections and power to do it and because he would have felt they had been badly treated. I would have never asked him but he would have done it for them because of me. But because my husbands family do not have a connection to "Wasta" in the UAE, they continue to suffer. Some may ask, if "O" disliked people who asked him to use "Wasta" then why did he do it? He did it because that was what was expected of him, his reputation ment a lot to him, but I know what he really thought of each and everyone of the people he helped and its too rude to say here.

My husbands family are Palestinian, they have lived in UAE about 40 years. They were UAE locals for many years, had the UAE passport. The late Sheikh of Sharjah even gave my father-in-law a large piece of land where the large family house was built. But all of a sudden my in-laws along with many others who had been given UAE passport, ended up stateless. The government refused to renew their UAE passports and hundreds like them ended up stateless with no Passport except an expired UAE one. What country gives something to someone and then takes it away for no reason other than they decided to just stop renewing it. Thus leaving hundreds of families without the ability to travel or to lead a normal life?
Every year they are told "Yes we will renew, just wait" but each year these promises fail to materialise.
My husband got sick of being unable to travel or being treated like a second class citizen because his status was "No Passport", that he handed back his expired one and applied for a Palestinian one even though he can never go to Palestine thanks to the Isreali government. It was the only way he could leave UAE to come to UK to study at University. Now his brother who is a very high up manager in a well known UAE company has just handed his back and applied for a Palestinian one because he wants more for his family and hopes to eventually emigrate abroad. Now he no longer holds an expired UAE passport his salary has had 8,000 dirhams a month knocked off it because he is no longer classed as local and because he now holds a Palestinian passport. IS THIS FAIR, damn right its not fair, its disgusting. In UK we do not judge you, pay you different salaries or treat you differently in a job, because of the passport/nationality you hold.

However the Palestinian family next door to my in-laws licked some butt, used "Wasta" and they had their UAE passports renewed and are now fully fledged UAE nationals. So this is another BIG reason why "Wasta" is so very very wrong.

The other thing I really noticed in UAE was the way Asians are treated. I always knew it went on but it never affected me, my life was such that I really had no time or desire to notice. But being back in the UK for the past 6 years I really noticed it on my trip back.
For a start, the terrible salaries they are paid. Please dont use the excuse that 300dirhams in India is worth a lot to them. How can some companies pay their staff so little because they do not hold something like a UK or USA passport.
My brother-in-laws office boy gets paid just 300 dirhams a month for a 45 hour week. That is slavery..
UAE needs to remember that the country was built by these poor Asian people by their blood, sweat and tears, yet they are looked down on with distate, treated like dogs and thought of as such especially by the western expats.
I remember a British woman told me that she sat next to someone in her office who did exactly the same job as her yet the Brit womans salary was 12,000 dirhams a month and the Indian womans salary was just 1,200 dirhams per month. The Brit got a one bedroomed apartment fully furnished and the Indian got bedspace in a grotty apartment in Karama with a ton of other women. I am guessing this situation still exists and its wrong.

The lack of health and safety...I almost screamed when I saw the dangerous conditions the construction workers were working in when we drove along the Dubai/Sharjah Road, metal poles sticking out of a 20th floor window hole with planks of wood to stand on, as the workers balanced dangerously finishing building an apartment block. Do the powers that be not care that these poor workers could plummet to their death at any moment, that the workers need proper scaffolding and harnesses to keep them safe. I did not drive past one building being built that would have met proper health and safety regulations.

Now let me think of some things in UAE that really made me laugh out loud.
Ok when I lived there I wore Hijab, I also wore traditional Emirati dress. Back in those days the Abaya and Shayla was simple. Of course we wore them with decoration such as crystals, tassles etc, but it was simple.
I actually cried with laughter when I saw some of the outfits on display in the shopping malls. What is it with those hideous growth things women now wear under their shayla. Ok if kept at a reasonable size, they look ok, but one woman walked past me and it looked like she had a parking cone on top of her head. It looked STUPID. Also her abaya was flapping open and she looked like a 2dirham hooker underneath it. She was wearing the most revealing outfit you can imagine and not bothered in the slightest that as she walked everyone got an eyeful.

The next thing I found so annoying was the western women dressed in pretty abaya's and shayla's, their eyes caked in Kohl, who sat in coffee shops talking as loud as possible and then whipping off their shayla's and shaking out their freshly washed and blow dryed hair if a group of UAE local men sat near them. What they heck are they doing bothering to cover their hair for and then whipping it off for the attention factor when men sat near them. I witnessed this a few times and my sister-in-laws and I used to sit and joke about it as it was just so obvious these women were "wannabe local wives".

When I left UAE my heart literaly broke in half, I have been unable to watch anything about UAE on the TV since I left, as the pain of leaving was so bad. But this trip back has stopped that pain, I no longer have a longing to return. Things are so different now, its no longer the beautiful UAE I remember with the simple life style. Virtually all the old stuff has gone, in its place is all the trappings and ugliness of the western world.
When I lived there the main western expat community was British...now it is full to the brim of just about every nationality. Maybe to those that have only been there since 2004 and onwards, my post will not make sense, but those like me who moved out to UAE 20 years ago and before will know what I am talking about, regarding the changes.
I no longer wish to return to UAE to live, my home now is UK, where human rights reign, where health and safety matter, where you are paid a salary based on the job you do not the passport you hold, that if you are granted citizenship it wont be taken away from you unless your caught spying and putting the countries security at risk. Where the UK citizen is not treated more highly than anyone else who has rights to live and work in the UK.

Also why is everyone (female) so obssessed with finding themselves a local husband??, is it that they believe the myth that all locals are amazingly rich (and that is the reason they want one). I know this to be totally untrue, many live the life of a rich man but in reality have so much debt they probably find it hard to sleep at night. I have seen in the past so many ads by women on muslims matrimonial sites specifically stating they want UAE man only. Most I bet have never even set foot in the UAE. I have even seen Christian women advertising putting their ideal match as UAE local. As for women already married to locals who boast that everyone is jelous of them. NO NO NO, please get over yourself, only the shallow minded who are looking for the glitzy life they believe they will have, will be jelous of you.
HOWEVER
Most expat women already married to locals fell in love at college or university or out and about in the host country the locals were studying/visiting, they did not go out and specifically search for a local, did not advertise somewhere for a local man only, they met under normal circumstances, fell in love and got married, it did not matter to them if they were UAE local or from Planet Zongo. They gave up their home country and life because of real love, not because they saw a program on UAE and thought "Oh yes, I'll find myself one of them".

I had a wonderful life in UAE, I saw the most amazing things, was priviledged to experience things most expats would never get a chance to see or do. I met some amazing people, but sadly I was blinded to some of the not so good things. I left just at the right time, I left as change began to take place. My memories of UAE are of the real UAE, not the plastic city version. Dont get me wrong, I love the UAE people, the person I loved more than I have ever loved anyone "O" was Emirati but I just do not agree or accept the lack of human rights and the corruption that continues to go on there and in my opinion it is totally Haram and very unislamic.

Going back was the best thing I ever did, it let me heart finally be at peace as the love for the old UAE will always remain but the new UAE only leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The longing to return and the tears of being forced to leave have now left me. I have my memories that no one can take away from me and that is how I will always remember UAE. The evenings of driving off the Dubai/Sharjah road to fish when there were no apartment buildings at all...my weekends in Fujeriah and Kalba where one of the the only hotels was the Hilton, virtually empty at weekends except for the odd German tourist group. Of only really finding western expats (virtually all British) in Jumeriah. Evenings at the Country Club, Offshore Sailing Club, Aviation Club which were virtually empty most nights except for a few Brits and a handful of locals. I also remember a time when one of the only hotels in Jumeriah was the Chicargo Beach Hotel which I used to visit daily. The beach was empty, I loved it. Nightclubs were virtually non existant unlike today where its a haven for people who think the only way to enjoy is to get totally blasted with as little on as possible.

I dont know when I will return again, maybe next year, but only to visit my in-laws, if they were not there I doubt I would ever choose to go back again.

Unless you lived in Dubai before 2000 you will not understand how I feel right now about the changes in UAE.
I can still remember Dubai airport when it was this tiny thing with rows of seats at each gate, a tiny coffee shop and one duty free shop.

I arrived in Dubai last thursday evening and as we drove to my in laws house in Sharjah I felt sick as we drove down the dubai-sharjah highway, all I could see was ugly apartment buildings and bridges.
The next evening we drove into Dubai, I actually felt like crying. I wanted everything to be exactly the same as when I left, of how I remember my 13 years there, yet all around me was huge tall buildings, bridges and the metro high above me. I felt like I was being suffocated, it made me want to cry.

My husband eventually drove me into Jumeriah, thanks Allah nothing much had changed, I felt at home again, it was exactly more or less as it was when I left.

In the shopping malls in Dubai I saw western women dressed like locals, but as soon as they sat in a coffee shop full of local men, they whipped off their shayla's so their hair fell about their shoulders, while they talked loudly hoping to get someones attention. What is this???? I never saw anything like this before. It seems a lot of western women are desperate to grab themselves a Khaleeji man and going out and putting themselves on display seems to be the way they think it will work.
What is the point of wearing Hijab if you throw off your shayla to show off your freshly washed and blow dried hair to a group of thobe wearing men.

Things have changed more than I ever thought possible. I will always love UAE but for me the magic has gone, it has changed too much, has become too westernised, too many people, too many buildings and life seems complicated now. I thank Allah that I got to spend time there when In did.
I remember dubai-sharjah road when it was basically just desert each side, I remember the time when their was a very small expat western community mainly British to be honest because most other countries such as USA etc, really had no idea even where Dubai was. Now everyone is here.
Maybe its good for UAE, I dont know but if it were not for the locals walking around I would not even know I was in the Middle East.

Yes after 6 years away I am finally going back to UAE, even if it is just for 2 weeks.

My daughter and husband flew out on the 8th July and I will join them soon. We will be staying in Sharjah where my hubands family own a house.
It is the first time I have ever been away from my daughter, but she has such an amazing relationship with my husband and it was important to me that Imane got to spend time in an Islamic environment with a big loving arab family.

Considering her birth father ignores her 99.9% of the time, my new husband is the light of her life. (talking of her birth father, can you believe after not calling for months (she gets one call a year) and having not seen him for 1.5 years) he calls up out of the blue at my place of work and after being rude to my work collegue then proceeds to ask me if he can take Imane to Morroco in September......NO WAY, she does not really know him, how on earth does he think I can trust him with her in a country she actually has citizenship of thanks to him obtaining a morrocan passport for her when she was born..I would most likely live in fear I would never see her again.

Anyway enough of him.....
Things I am looking forward to are seeing how much UAE has changed (I know I am going to hate the changes) as life was so simple back in the days I was there (Begining of 1990 until 2004). I am looking forward to catching up with dear, never forgotten friends and to show my husband where I just to live, where I owned my Hair and Beauty Salon (on same road as Burjman Center) and the restaurant I owned (near Al Mulla Plaza).

I have recently got back in touch with a dear friend from the past and we email back and forth when time allows. He has such an interesting website which you should check out, full of different articles on such things as date farming.
My friend is from the Al Nahyan family but to me he will always just be "S". He is one of the most articulate people I know and often writes articles and in media such as Gulf News. I always used to joke with "O" that "S" was more British than me because of the beautiful way he spoke and his elegant behaviour, and conversation with him was never boring.
His website is http://www.palmdate.biz/
I plan to do some reading on there this weekend and give my suggestions for any changes that could be made.

During my trip I also hope Insha Allah to get my husband to help me with Islam. Those that have read my blog know I have struggled a lot with Islam since everything that happened with Imanes father and I plan to spend some time reading and memorising more surah's Insah Allah.

My husband keeps me updated on my daughters trip and sends photos etc. She had big problems the first two days as was missing me terribly and there were lots of tears, but now she LOVES it there and spends all her time with my brother-in-law's children, even sleeping with the girls.
Here is a photo of Imane after getting her face painted at a mall in Dubai.
She just had all her beautiful hair cut off after 2 years of begging...as some may know from my blog, she refuses to dress like a girl, she wants to be a boy right now and we think she feels her real father does not love her because she is not a boy (because she started to reject anything girly after our last trip to Zurich to visit her dad when she was pushed aside most of the trip in favour of her toddler half brother)


Thats all for now will update during my trip Insha Allah

After a break from blogging I thought I would restart again.
Life has been a bit hectic, work has been busy, my business has been busy and of course being a wife and mother is always busy.

My husband is currently in Bournemouth trying to find accomodation for his final year at University. Sadly as soon as he mentions he is Palestinian people seem to get put off wanting to share with him. I think in the end he is going to have to pay the extra and rent a small house or apartment on his own.

My daughter is totally into the World Cup at the moment, something I cant stand. I have never been a football fan and right now it is cringworthy watching UK play.

Imane and my husband are going to UAE for around 6 weeks in the summer, to spend time with my in-laws and to enjoy Ramadan. Sadly there is no way I can take 6 weeks off work but I do hope to fly out for the Eid holiday insha Allah and it will be great to be back in UAE where hopefully I can let some of my pain of having to leave there 6 years ago free.
I miss my life there a lot, miss all the friends I had and miss just waking up to sunshine virtually everyday.

Yesterday in the UK was a big day. The new government released its budget to try to get UK back on track after years of frivolous financial waste by the Labour government. Some of us are going to be hit hard in the pocket but it needs to be done otherwise I can see UK spiralling into something we can never get out of.
I am a little annoyed that they did not tackle the problem of Welfare Benefit however.

In UK many many people live off welfare as a way of life, you often see generations of families who have never done a hard days work in their life, living off the hard working tax payer, continuing to have children even though it is the state who is providing for them.
If I was Primeminister I would limit the amount of help to 2 children only, if your long term unemployed then what right have you got to continue to have children and expect others who work hard to pay for them.
In my job I see on a daily basis girls as young as 22 with 3 or more children who believe the government are responsible for everything in their life. It is morally wrong and I feel the government should have tackled this better.

Well I have been up since 5.30am, I enjoy getting up early, having a coffee while I browse the local papers online. I can then get ready in peace before waking my daughter up. Normally I am in my office by about 8.30am

We went to the skin hospital and thanks Allah all is well, nothing for hubby to worry about.

On Monday I have my appointment at the same hospital which I have waited 3 long months for.
I have had for the past two years a small lesion on my breast (very small) but as it has not gone away and scabs over all the time and now itches my doctor has sent me to be checked as she does not like the look of it anymore. I am hoping it is nothing, having lost my mother and only sister to cancer, I really dont think I could deal with it myself.

The past week has been Hell at work.
I work for local government in the UK in Housing and we have been so short staffed. On monday there were just 2 HMA's out of 4 and I had to cover the cash desk (as cashier was off as usual)and cover the phones (which can ring no-stop sometimes). Then my work collegue suddenly said she had a migraine so asked to go home. I was left covering everything, trying to take cash from tenants, answer calls (some of them demanding and abusive) as well as deal with tenants who think the government should totally manage their lives.
I got so stressed that I had a major blow out in the main office haha, I really let rip with some very unislamic language. Luckily my collegues gave me a big ole hug.

Ummmm what else has happened this week. Oh yes, the little brat from over the road.
My daughter has started to play outside, she has made friends with a little 8 year old who lives over the road. Last night while doing some 3D work for a client I let her come in the house and play with Imane. She finally left about 7pm.
After Imane fell asleep I went to the bathroom and as I switched on the light I noticed something smeared all over the wall. I took a closer look and it was POOH, yes you read that correctly.

There was pooh alllll over the back wall and then I noticed chunks of it on the floor. I knew it was NOT Imane, never in 6 years has my child done something dirty like that, she may do a lot of VERY naughty things but not that.
In the morning when Imane woke up I tried to find out what happened, it took a while as she was trying to protect her new friend. Finally she told me the girl used the bathroom, did a pooh, dipped the toilet brush into the toilet and thought it would be funny to paint my walls with her turds.
She then shook the brush and let all her mess fly off everywhere.

This child is now BANNED from my house and I have a good mind to go speak with her mother. However her mother has 2 6ft Pythons so do I really want to mess with her lol.

Life has been busy these past few weeks so not had time to blog.

I have had my 3rd cold this year (having diabetes has really upset my immune system), my husband has been ill with a cold and last night we also ended up in the A&E of the eye hospital as his eye has gone all red and it hurts him a lot.
We have to go back this morning so a doctor can look at it further.

My husband has also been referred to a skin cancer specialist as our doctor noticed a small mole on the side of his nose that she really does not like the look of. His appt is next thursday morning so prayers that it is nothing please.

I have been working hard on my art and currently have some digital fantasy backdrops for sale on ebay (my ebay ID is thefairypath). I have also being creating lots of fantasy scenes for a client in the USA, so been busy busy busy.

I have also been feeling a lot of anger these past few weeks. My ex husband (daughters father) had yet another child with his new wife. How I found out about it was she stuck a photo of the new baby on my facebook page with a note basically saying "I hope Imane is happy she has a new sister). Well NO Imane was not happy sorry to say and neither was I. How can that man continue to breed when he has not paid a penny in child support for 6 years.
I sent his wife a mesg saying enough was enough, that I wanted my ex's email addy so I can ask him to start paying for Imane. I got ZERO response so I am mad, mad, mad right now.

Anyway I will leave him in the hands of Allah.

For over 2 years now I have had serious problems with my daughter, the real problems started after our last visit to Switzerland to see her dad.

The main one is she refuses to eat anything I cook and at home lives on crisps, chocolate and cucumber. Just a few days ago she began to eat roast potatoes with gravy.

She has lost an alarming amount of weight and my doctors just basically told me to starve her by refusing to give her the things she will eat. I did try it once, she refused to eat for almost 2 weeks until I had to give in.

Funny enough she eats her school dinner and also eats her breakfast at breakfast club but at home ZERO.

A lot of her behaviour is control related, she seems to want to be the adult and for me to be the child. What with the controlling, hitting and kicking, screaming and just being downright nasty sometimes (as though she hates me), her obsession with wanting to be a boy, dress and act as a boy, I was finding it hard to cope.

When my husband is at home she is sooooo good, as soon as he leaves for Uni, she is back to her normal behaviour.

Her school have finally referred her for counselling and I had to meet with the woman who will work with her this morning.
We spoke a lot about my own childhood, when I lost my only sister to cancer when she was 9 and I was 10, about my life in UAE, my marraige to Imanes dad, the way we ended up back in UK with ZERO, my mother dying the month before Imane was born etc

The counsellor believes 100% that any major stress that happens during pregnancy passes onto the unborn child, and she believes apart from the damage Imanes father has done to her by ignoring her and making it obvious he has more or less washed his hands of her, she has also suffered due to the amount of stress I was under while pregnant.

She was born into a lot of sorrow and grief and maybe that is why she is such an angry little girl.

I hope through counselling my daughter can let us see what is on her mind, why she is so angry with me (this has been going on long before my husband came into our lives) and what she actually feels about her father.

I am also going to get some counselling as I have never really spoken to anyone professional about what I have been through and maybe this will help Imane in the longrun.

I worry about Imane, she hates me speaking arabic, and when we talk about Islam and tell her she is a Muslim she get very angry and screams at me to speak english and that she is not a muslim as she is not vegetarian (have no idea why she associates Islam with Veggies). Maybe arabic and Islam are things she associates with her father and thats why she is so against us talking about it....

I pray to Allah my little girl will grow healthy and happy and loose the anger she has inside. She is my only baby and I love her very much.

Imane at Brighton Beach having an ice cream 2007, before things went downhill (she even wore pink back then and not a spiderman in sight)

2 weeks before I flew back to UK I sent my father a letter telling him everything that had happened and the reason why I was coming home. I never heared anything from him which did not suprise me but I at least thought he would let his only child and grandchild rest for the night in his house when I got back until I could sort something out.

Anyway around lunchtime we arrived back in the UK. I had not been back to the UK for 9 years so everything was new to me.
As I waited for our suitcases I stood there wanting to cry, I had no idea what to do or what would happen to us. Once I collected our cases I made my way to a phone box and tried to call my father (no answer). I then called my mothers sister Christine and quickly told her I had to run away from UAE and would explain later, but could I at least come straight to her and leave my cases there while I tried to work out what to do.

Imane and I got a National Express coach back to Brighton (thanks god for "O" money, we would have been destitute in Heathrow without that). Once I arrived in Brighton after a 2 hour journey my aunt came and picked us up. She told me my father had deliberatly booked a holiday so he was not in UK when we arrived home as he had no intention of putting himself out and helping us. My aunt wanted us to be with her but she had no room as all her teenage kids lived at home, so after lots of cuddles and cups of tea, we managed to find a cheap hotel for the night and my aunt looked after our cases and then drove us to the hotel. I decided that the next morning after checking out I would go straight to the local Brighton and Hove City Council homeless department and tell them my daughter and I had nowhere to sleep that night (UK is very good at looking after its people if they are in serious trouble).

Early the next morning Imane and I went to the homeless office and I had to wait to see someone. As I spilled out my story between sobs, the council told me they were going to help me and would accept me as homeless and try to house me. We had to wait for a few hours and had to fill in some forms, but later that afternoon we were given the keys to a tiny studio in a building for homeless people in the center of Brighton until they could permenantly house me.

The studio was really grotty and dirty but at least it was a roof over our heads. My aunt and one of my other aunts and my uncle all rallied round and managed to give us blankets, a secondhand cot for Imane, some old saucepans and even a tiny tv. Over the next few days someone came to help me to fill out all the forms to get wellfare benefit for my daughter and I.
I actually spent 10 weeks living on £46 a week until my tax credits were sorted out for Imane, so life was really hard during that time.

The day after I arrived back to UK, I called my ex from a phone box and told him I wanted a divorce, that no way on earth would I ever let him come and live in the UK, that he was a bad muslim, terrible husband and father and the fact he knowingly sent us to UK without even 1 dh just showed me that the marraige had to end that I served no purpose to him than to get a european citizenship. I then closed the phone on him.

As for my life after this well, 8 weeks after first being put in the homeless studio, Imane and I were given our own 1 bedroom apartment in Ajman and I became a council tenant. I suffered with very bad depression but 8 months later managed to find the job I have now, funny enough I now work for Brighton and Hove City Council in Housing haha.
I work hard, and take care of Imane myself, we now have a large 2 bedroomed apartment by the sea and it is beautifully furnished from my hard earned money. I have recently married again to Rayed who is an International Student (Palestinian but all his family live in UAE).

As for my ex husband, well 6 weeks after I left him he was in Zurich with another woman who he had met on the net while married to me. He is married to her now, they have one son aged 2 and in the past 5.5 years he has not sent one single penny of finance for Imane. She gets one present on her birthday each year and has received a few packages of clothes. He has visited her once for 2 days and in the past 2 years has called her just twice for 40 seconds each phone call.

Despite him being a looser, I have spent my own money twice flying my daughter to Zurich to visit her dad and his new wife and brother, so she at least has some contact. But the last time I took her she got so upset that he spends all his time on her brother, that it affected her so badly that she now wants to be a boy and only dresses as a boy.

If you ask Imane about her dad she tells everyone she does not like him, so refuses to talk about him and does not want to see him.

Marriage to my ex almost put me off Islam, for years I have struggles to follow it, I have not prayed for years, I no longer wear Hijab and hopefully through my new husband I can begin to love it again. But when you suffer so much at the hands of a man that prays 5 times a day and goes regular to the mosque and is always spurting off about Islam and what your doing is against it, when in reality he has commited every sin going I hope everyone understands why I lost my love for Islam and why only now I am begining to fall in love with it again.

So there is my story. I am strong yes, made lots of wrong decisions but at the end of the day I got through it all and my life now is good. I am happy with life and so glad that Morrocan looser is gone from my life and Imanes.
Funny enough I get on well with his new wife and she is even a FB friend haha, she has had many problems with him such as catching him chatting with women and she even suspects he cheated once (I have no idea why she stays with him)
He does not deserve to be Imanes father, a father is more than just being the sperm donor, dont you agree?

At night when I got up to make a night feed for Imane (stress had caused my milk flow to be non existant) I would walk past my ex husbands bedroom and see a light under the door and hear the tap tap tap of his keyboard. I knew damn well what he was doing but I had to prove it.

One evening he accidently forgot to close his messenger as he went to play football with his fellow Morrocan work collegues. I managed to change his settings to save all his chat conversations to a history file on the computer. Each morning I would wake up when he had left for work and check his messege history.
He was chatting to all sorts of women, and telling quite a few different stories to them. Some he was proposing marraige and declaring undying love to them claiming he was single, to others he told them his wife had ran off and left him and stolen his new born baby daughter. Apart from these pathetic stories he was also asking them really disgusting things such as how they liked sex, what he would like to do to them, what he wanted them to do to him. I used to print all these conversations out as my evidence for when I decided to make my move and leave with my baby.
I still have them all now, carefully stored in a folder, so no one can ever say I imagined all of this and when Imane is older if she really wants to know the truth, she can read for herself.

The other thing he was doing was having phone sex, although I have no real proof of this as never heared any of his conversations, the phone bill while I was in hospital was over 6,000 dhs and the numbers listed were USA, France, Morroco, Germany etc. And going from some of the chat conversations it was obvious what he was doing on the phone.

Now some may well ask why the hell I stayed. Unless your actually living this nightmare you cant imagine how life actually was. Firstly my mother had just died, my father has always been an unloving man towards me and was not interested at all in helping me if I managed to fly back to UK.
My options were to just leave and return to ZERO or stay and eventually try to make a new life for myself in UAE and do my best to keep my daughter with me as the ex constantly threatened to make problems so the courts would give Imane to him. I guess I was mentally in a very bad way and when your suffering like that you do not make the right decisions.

The next bad thing to happen was my ex's mother sent his trollop of a sister Bushra to stay with us, on the pretence of her coming to take care of me and Imane. Now Bushra claims to be a good muslim yet she dresses like a street walker, goes off alone from Casablanca to Marakesh for weekends etc etc and asks men for money by dailing a random number and then talking all sweet and innocent (my ex husband actually told me she did this).
She arrived and my husband moved her into the bedroom with him, which my bestfriend and I thought was very strange.
She took over my house and did everything for my ex, while Imane and I were basically ignored. After she had been there a few weeks something happened one night to cause a big argument with my ex and I (I cant remember what started it or what it was about to be honest). At 11pm at night my ex husband taking his sisters side pushed me and Imane into the street. I was holding the baby and walking around Mussafa in my abaya when I bumped into two of his Morrocan friends. They saw me crying and one stayed with me and the other went back to our apartment to have a go at my ex. Apparently my ex told him I could go to hell and slammed the door in his face.

I then called "O" from my mobile and he told me to flag down any police car and tell them what happened and he would if necessary drive from Dubai to get me and Imane.
I saw a police 4x4 parked and went up to the two officers sitting in it and managed to explain best I could what had happened. The put Imane and I into the back and drove us to a police station (I cant remember which one but it was not in AbuDhbai city, but just outside, nearer Mussafa).
By then Imane was crying as she needed a feed so one of the police at the station managed to get some formula for her and I was then shown in to speak to the police chief of the station. I basically sobbed my heart out to him about what had happend since I met my husband. But to be honest I felt this policeman did not really believe me as he kept asking me what I had done to make my husband treat me this way. Heck most of my marraige I was either shoved off to live with phyco relatives or laying in a hospital bed for months, what kind of wrong could I have done????.
About one hour later, a police officer knocked on the door of the office I was in and standing next to him was my ex husband and his vulgar sister (who may I add had ditched the street walker clothes and donned an abaya and shayla), she began to scream like a cat saying how bad I was and my ex husband lied through his teeth and claimed I was the cheater as I knew all these local men and still talked to them (I only ever since marraige spoke to "O" as he was like family to me and I had cut contact with just about every person I had ever known in UAE from the day I married).
He then had the cheek to even claim I was a drug addict (because once in 1991 I had smoked hash while living in the UK about 12 years before I even met my ex husband).

The chief then turned to me and basically told me to respect my husband, to be a good wife and stop making problems. I was gob smacked, really shocked. We were then all told to leave. NO ONE WAS TAKING ME SERIOUSLY, I could not believe it.
So we all got in a taxi and went home.
I refused to talk to anyone for 3 days, I just kept to myself in my bedroom with Imane.
"O" wanted to help me but he was worried his name would be dragged into all this mess as he did not trust my ex husband, he promised to always be there for me but that was about it. As he was known as a VIP in UAE he was worried about his reputation hahaha.
I felt desperate and alone and really did not know what I was going to do.

About a week later, my sister-in-law was caught by my ex talking to a local guy on the phone and arranging to meet him. When questioned it appeared she was randomly dialing numbers again and finally found someone she thought she could use. A huge fight broke out between them as he explained what the police thought about single morrocan girls out alone at night with local men and he refused to let her leave the house as she was under his visa and it would make a problem for him.
She began the cat screaming again and began to pack her bags and then started screaming abuse at me as I walked into the kitchen to make milk for Imane. I total lost the plot then, I grabbed her suitcase and threw it outside the door and screamed at her that she was nothing more than a prostitute, who dressed like a 1 dh hooker and instead of looking after me she had made my life a living hell along with he cheating ass brother.
I then went into my bedroom and was standing over Imanes cot about to pick her up when she charged into my bedroom with a large knife from the kitchen and plunged at me. Luckily my ex saw her and managed to just push her has she lunged at me and the knife sliced the edge of my arm instead of going into my back.
My husband then called the police and told them his sister had tried to stab his wife and within 10 minutes we had 6 policemen in our apartment. Bushra was throwing herself on the floor screaming like a woman possessed and I remember 3 of the policemen standing there trying hard not to laugh at how pathetic she looked.
I told the police what I had called her and why I called her that and thanks god for once they believed my story and from what they saw of Bushra and her foul mouth and phyco rages they advised my husband if he wanted to press charges they would arrest her on the spot and throw her in jail for the night or he could arrange to have her sent back to Morroco as soon as possible.

I wanted her arrested but the ex decided to move her upstairs with his Morrocan friend and his wife while he arranged to have her visit visa cancelled and to book her flight home to Casablanca.
For once my ex was on my side and as he was suddenly being nice I decided to play nice too and then plot my escape out of this marraige.
Bushra was flown home about 5 days later and of course I ended up getting the blame for everything.

My ex and I got on for about a month and during this time, while he was at work I plotted how to return to UK even though I would be going back to ZERO. I contacted charities such as SHELTER and the Womens Refuge in my home town of Brighton and got lots of advice by email on what to do to register myself and my daughter as homeless.
Once I had the confidence to put my plan into action I told my ex it was better Imane and I returned to UK and then he could join us later and eventually he would get UK citizenship.
Of course he was so desperate to not return to Morroco after his contract finished that thanks God he believed me.
He bought me a one way ticket to UK and agreed to let me leave with Imane. He knew we were going back to ZERO and it did not seem to bother him at all (just shows what kind of man he is).
The night before I flew back to UK we drove down to Ajman so I could say goodbye to my best friend Fay and her local husband Jamal. I was left at Fays house while the ex went to visit a friend of his. "O" popped round to Fays as well to say goodbye to me and to tell me once I got back and divorced the ex, if I wanted to come back to UAE he would arrange everything and find us somewhere to live. "O" then shoved £400 into my hand and told me to use it to get a hotel for the first night back in UK and things for Imane. All of them knew what I was going to do when I reached UK and everyone supported my plan.

Early the next morning with 3 suitcases packed, the ex took Imane and I to the airport. As he was about to leave us as we went through security I asked him for money. As Allah is my witness, my ex husband and the father of my child who was just 6 months old at the time, refused to give me even 1 dh to buy a bottle of water. He kissed Imane on the head and walked off. If "O" had not given me that £400 then I would have been totally destitute when I arrived in UK.
As I sat waiting for our Al Etihad flight I boiled with hate, boiled with hate because in my husbands bank account that morning was a total of 8,000 dhs yet he could not even give us money to buy milk, pampers for our child or even enough to ensure we had somewhere to sleep when we arrived back in the UK (remember he did not know about the £400 "O" had given me).
My ex calmly walked off leaving his wife and baby destitute.

When the flight finally took off I just let out a great sigh of relief, finally I was free and no matter how hard things were going to be I just knew eventually we would be ok.

Part 3 in next blog post

I feel to write about my daughters father tonight (my ex husband) as he annoys me so much and is such a terrible father that he deserves his own exposure post. I know airing dirty washing in public is not a good thing, but its about time I put the story into words.

It may all seem like a fairytale to those that read it but as Allah is my witness it is alllllll true.

I think one of the biggest mistakes of my life was marrying my ex husband, however despite it being a terrible marraige I did get blessed with my daughter Imane which I thank Allah for.

I met my ex husband in Feb 2003, he told me everything I wanted to hear, I married him March 2003, got pregnant with Imane 2 weeks later then realised what a slimeball he really was.
I think I first realised this just after I got a positive pregnancy test. At the time he was living in Abu Dhabi in his staff apartment and I was still living in my home in Ajman.
After a weekend with me he accidently left his hotmail email open which I noticed after he left, so for some reason I decided to just check it out.

I found tons of emails from women all over the world which were in reply to emails he had sent them most of which were sent from about 3 days after our wedding. In all of them he was proposing marraige and in some he had even sent a photograph of his Penis.
Now after reading through all those emails it suddenly dawned on me, that this guy had probably married me in the hope of eventually getting my citizenship and moving to the UK, as all the women he had contacted were European/American/Canadian etc.

I did not say anything to him but I did go to the court to see if I could get divorced, which they refused because I was pregnant. Eventually I tackled him about these emails and he swore they were sent before he met me (he was lying through his teeth) and he swore he would never do anything to hurt or cheat me (again lying through his teeth, I dont know how he dared get on his prayer mat after that.
So I decided there was nothing else I could do but do my best in the marraige and do what I had to do after my child was born.

A month into the pregnancy I began to bleed and the doctors put me on bedrest for 3 months. At the time I was running a successful online graphic business and making good money. However to make my money I had to sit at my computer up to 18 hours a day and of course I could not do this due to the bedrest. So my ex husband was totally horrified to realise he would have to financially looking after me and he HATED THAT and he hated me for not bringing money into the home.
We had a lot of fights, especially as I found he was still chatting with women on the net, emailing them and getting text messeges from strange women. One day when I confronted him yet again he actually beat me (I was almost 3 months pregnant).

My ex husband then hatched a plan with his sister who lives in Geneva Switzerland, to send me there to stay until the baby was born and he would join me later. What I was told about this situation was that I would live with his sister and her husband, that I would have my own bedroom, a computer for my own use so I could if able run my business. His sister also said she wanted me to look after her kids while she worked and she would pay me. I would have health insurance and they were buying me loads of new clothes so not to bring any of my khaleeji stuff with me.

I agreed to go, thinking that after I had saved up for a few months I could flee to the UK and give birth there and then divorce him. Just before I flew to Geneva my ex ripped apart my home in Ajman and everything was sold, him and his friends helped themselves to anything that could not be sold and believe it or not HE kept the money and said he was using it to pay my airfare and expences.

However the reality when I arrived in Geneva was horrifying.
I was shown into a tiny room that appeared to be her husbands office, inside was a very very old sofa bed (looked like an antique) with no sheets or blankets or pillows. She threw down one white sheet for me and that was all. There was a computer but I was told I could not use it.
I then found out there were no clothes for me, no job as promised looking after her kids and everything I had been told was lies.
The first night there I cried myself to sleep, I covered myself with the white sheet and used the cushions as pillows.
In the morning the nanny they employed to look after the kids gave me a proper pillow but each day it mysteriously dissapeared. Even the remote control for the tiny tv in the room dissapeared so I could not watch it.
I wont go into everything that happened but basically they said my ex husband had lied to me about the job, room etc and he forced me on them and my ex husband claims they were the liars. To be honest at that point I did not care, and it was begining to dawn on me that the entire family was not normal.

After being there 5 weeks I had a huge fight with my sister-in-law and her husband about being brought to switzerland without any health insurance and I demanded they take me to a doctor to be checked considering I had spent the past 3 months on bedrest. Khadeeja my sister-in-law finally agreed and it was when I had the scan that they found out I had complete placenta previa.

Considering this pregnancy complication was so dangerous and very life threatening they demanded I be sent back to Abu Dhabi. So a week later my ex husband bought me the cheapest flight he could lay his hands on and I flew Geneva to Istanbul and then had to sit in Istanbul airport with no money for over 5 hours on a hard chair praying I did not have a massive bleed until my flight was ready to fly back to UAE.
When I arrived I stood outside the airport for 45 minutes looking for my ex husband, he finally showed up and took me home.
Things were strained but I did my best just to cope with it. I managed to call "O" and my best friend and told them what happened and they promised to call me daily to ensure I was safe.

2 Weeks later while serving up my ex's dinner I felt like I had peed'ed my pants, I rushed to the bathroom and as I got up from the loo blood just gushed out of me with such force that it was splashing up the walls. I screamed for my ex and he almost passed out when he saw how much I was loosing. I rammed two bathsheets between my legs and his friend flagged down a taxi and we rushed from Mussafa to the Al Corniche hospital.

As soon as I walked into the hospital they could see I was in serious trouble and rushed me straight through to be seen. I remember the nurse who put me on the bed totally freaking out and screaming down the hall for a doctor to get in the room quick as the blood just would not stop. Within minutes I had an IV line in and was rushed up to the labour and delivery section and was surrounded by about 4 doctors all trying to get the bleeding to stop.
They told me that they were going to have to deliver my baby to save my life and she probably would not make it as she was a day off being 24 weeks gestation.
I remember crying and crying and begging them not to give me a C Section, to wait a little and see if the blood would stop. I dont know how I convinced them but they agreed to wait it out for an hour. The blood loss was monitored and thanks Allah it began to slow down.
My ex husband was no help at all, all he was worrying about was going home to sleep as he had work in the morning so I told him to go and I spent the rest of the night on the phone to my best friend for moral support.

In the early hours of the morning I was still bleeding but a transfusion was able to keep me stable and to prevent the section I was so desperate to avoid. One of the doctors came to see me and told me there was absolutly no way I was going to be able to go home. They had made the decision to keep me in Al Corniche hospital until I delivered my baby. Not just because of the problem I had and the likelyhood I would suffer another massive bleed but also they felt just from what they had seen of my ex husband that night that he could not be trusted to ensure I was safe and cared for and get me to the hospital in time to save the life of my baby and I in the event of another big bleed.

In the morning I was moved down to Ward B and put in a room with another women. My husband did not visit me again until about 2 days later. Just after they moved me to Ward B I received a phone call from a Bahraini friend of mine who also lives in Abudhabi, he had heared I was back in UAE and called to tell me some news.
I told him that I was in hospital and told him about the terrible trip to Switzerland and he then told me he had seen my husband in one of the shopping malls with two chinese women who he imagined to be prostitutes and he had followed them until they all went into a hotel very near my hospital. I knew Yassin was telling me the truth as the weekend he was talking about was the weekend my husband said he was going to stay in a hotel so he could use the pool etc with one of his male friends.

After the second day I was moved to Ward A and that is where I stayed until I finally delivered Imane at 36 weeks. I became such a well known patient and every single nurse and doctor who looked after me detested my ex husband with a vengance. I spent almost 4 months in Al Corniche and despite living just 30 mins away my ex visited me just once a week for 20 minutes. In all that time he left not one single dirham with me and through friends I found out his cheating ways continued.
The month before Imane was born my mother died, she had cancer and my ex did not even bother to come and visit me that day despite knowing how devistated I was. Luckily I had all the hospital staff comforting me.
On the day of my C Section (they were hoping to get me to 38 weeks but I went into labour so had to have the section early), my ex husband even failed to turn up to walk me down to the operating theatre. He finally showed up about 40 minutes late.

The day after my C Section (it was a long one as they found I also had placenta accreta and they had to literally cut my placenta out of my uterous as it started growing through), I was helped out of bed to have a shower and my ex husband jumped onto the bed and just layed there relaxing. When I got out of the bathroom I had to sit on a hard chair as he did not think to let me get back into bed. Finally a nurse came in and told him to get himself out of the bed and that she had never met such a selfish man in her life.

I came out of hospital 5 days later and just before I went home one of the doctors told me if I did not feel to go home they would arrange something so I could stay longer as they knew life was not going to be easy once I got home.

When we were leaving, my ex told me he had given the hospital my passport as security as he had not paid my hospital bill (I just could not believe this). In the end I ended up paying my own bill so I could get my passport back.
When I arrived back to his staff apartment he told me he had put Imane and I into the other bedroom. I walked in and it was a mess. He had set Imanes cot up but in a pile in one corner was weeks of dirty washing and his ironing. I was then left alone, very sore and trying to cope with a new born all alone.
I felt like I wanted to end everything, my life at that point was the lowest it had ever been and I talked a lot to Allah about how a muslim can be so bad to his wife.
Anyway to cut it short now, I was left day after day without even 1 dirham, not even to call a taxi if Imane got sick. At night when I got up to make a night feed for Imane (stress had caused my milk flow to be non existant)

Will write more tommorow insha allah, its late now.

I had all my hair cut off today.
I have been trying to grow it long, but the last time I went for a haircut, the polish guy butchered me.

I popped into a local salon and he gave me a really trendy cut, hacked tons off but it has knocked a few years off the face which I could do with after hitting 43 this year.
I am not sure my husband is going to be too pleased, he wants me with long hair again, but recently it looked as though I had a pair of dog ears hanging down my face.
Maybe I will post a pic of it later.
Hubby is at Uni at the moment and comes home tommorow insha allah, so I think he will be shocked lol

Imane my daughter threw a fit after leaving the salon, as she had seen a really spiky boys cut on a pic on the wall and wanted it cut bad. My daughter wants to be a boy at the moment, only wears spiderman socks, boys clothes, refuses to be called Imane and only answers to the name of "HUMF" (dont ask me why) and now she is intent on having her hair cut into a short crop.
So as we were walking up the hill tonight she was lagging behind screaming "Cut my hair NOW". I just about made it home without having a nervous breakdown. She then proceeded to lay on the hall floor kicking her bedroom door screaming "I want a boys cut, its not fair".

Oh the joys of motherhood.

I have been running a business from home for years.
It started in UAE in 2000 and I have been running it on and off since then.

I have just purchased a new website The Fairy Path and am busy re-uploading all my work such as my photo/3d art, websets, 3D tubes and packages etc.
I have had so many clients ask when I am re-opening that I thought it was about time I got my website online again and begin to create.

I made this blog layout tonight, after uploading the background came out a little bigger than it was supposed to but it looks ok I think.
I plan to create lots more using my art work and offer them for free insha allah.

There were two things my ex husband did that truley broke my heart.
One was destroying every single letter and card my mother had written to me throughout my years in UAE.
I found this out the day I came out of Al Corniche Maternity hospital in Abu Dhabi after 4 long months as a patient after delivering my daughter Imane.
My mother died the month before Imane was born so I was dying to get out of hospital and read all the letters she had sent me over the years just to be close to her.

When I went to the box I kept them in, they were all gone, the Morrocan pig had ripped them all up and thrown them away. I was destroyed really, it broke my heart.

Now my photos of UAE were in their hundreds. Remember I lived in total there for 13 years and lived a life most expats dont get to see or experience.
I lived amoungst Emirati's and only had one British friend, I also lived with a local family and had hundreds of photos, some I had taken, some friends had taken and even professional ones by a famous photographer in UAE "Ramesh Shukla", who was a dear friend of "O" and myself.

My ex husband, after getting married, destroyed almost every single photo I had, I was left with just a handful, all my memories, all my history of my life there GONE. Again this broke my heart.
I do know that "O" my late Emirati partner, had copies of most of my photos and if I remember correctly they were stored in suitcases in his uncle Mohammed Al Shamsi's (the well known poet) traditional emirati house in Sharjah, where Mohammed used to sit in the evening talking with local elders and writing more poetry.

I often wonder if they are still all there, "O" died in 2005 so I have noway of knowing, hopefully when I return to UAE I can find that old old house and knock on the door and hope I can get some of my photographic history back insha allah

Since the day I first arrived in UAE all those years ago I have loved Bakhoor and became quite an expert on it.

I burned it everyday until I left in 2004 and still today when I can get hold of it I will use it to scent my home.

One of my favorites was made by some of the women from the Al Shamsi family, I was often given their wonderful homemade bakhoor pastels to burn and the scent was just out of this world. I also used to purchase very good quality Bakhoor in the wood form from Rasasi Perfumes in City Center Mall in Dubai.

To scent my local dresses and abaya's I would place them over a wooden structure and place the Bakhoor burner underneath until all the pungent smoke billowed through the fabric.

My husband just returned from the UAE and bought me Agarwood Coarse Powder from Abdul Samad Al Qurashi and it is beautiful. I just burnt some and my home smells divine.

I blend my own 3D art with clients photos of their children.I have digitally re-dressed every child in these pieces including re-painting the hair of some.
ENJOY

It has been snowing here in Brighton for days, I HATE IT.
We live right up on a hill and to walk anywhere means walking on black ice, its been a nightmare.

I have not been able to go to work since tuesday and its getting boring now.

My husband is due to fly back from Dubai tommorow, his flight is not the worry, its him getting back to Brighton that is the worry. I am constantly checking the weather and it does not look good.
Right now it is snowing again with more forcast all today and tonight and tommorow.

I have to head out down that slippery hill soon to stock up on food, not looking forward to it.
Rayed and I have his appointment at the Home Office in Croydon on tuesday to swap his student visa to a husband one. I just hope we make it and trains are running on the day insha allah.

Sometimes when I walk around Brighton it seems a life time ago I was in UAE.
My life there before I married the nasty ex husband was so totally different to how it is now, sometimes it seems like I dreamt it all.

Some of my fondest memories are of our weekends in Kalba (next to Fujeriah). For years we went every weekend to a large farm our friends owned.
We would leave wednesday evening or thursday morning and drive to the farm, all our friends in their 4x4's tagging along.

We spent the entire weekend driving into the mountains and wadi's playing music at night with loads of people from Fujeriah arrving to join in. Often I was the only female (which was normal as our friends were like my brothers), unless my best friend Fay came too with her local husband.

At night when it was very late, I would like to go drive alone, pop to the gas station to buy cream cheese and fromage frais (got sick of eating and seeing an entire goat on a plate). So to ensure I was safe, our dear friend Sheikh Hamdan Al Sharqi would make me drive his Land Cruiser with the Number 2 plate, so I was 100% safe (in those days the single numbers on a car belonged to Sheikhs only).

It used to amuse me when I pulled up to the gas station in Fujeriah in his 4x4 with the blacked out windows, watching the young guys stand to attention thinking a sheikh was getting out, and then this woman appears in leggings, bumpers and her hair covered. You could see the look on their faces as they wondered who the heck this woman was haha.

I also remember swimming in the pool surrounded by Jasmine bushes with their sweet scent. Sheikh Hamdan always handpicked me Jasmine from his garden each weekend when it was blooming. I miss those days and wonder how everyone is.

No one knew what happened to me once "O" died, only just recently I managed to make contact with the local family I lived with and told them what happened. (My ex husband deleted all phone numbers from my mobile when I was married so I lost touch with everyone).
I hope to return to UAE with my new husband this year and hope to find everyone again as I miss them all so much. They all knew me as LouLou as that was my name before I converted (Louise but nik of LouLou)

In my spare time I create art using Poser
I blend clients photos with my art to create Fantasy Art.
I also just create artwork using 3D models.
Here are a selection that I have done recently.
The first 4 my normal 3D artwork. I hope you enjoy.
The final 3 are of friends children transformed into fairies. I even digitally redressed them, can you believe?