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