It has been pretty hectic in my life the past few months so not had time to update my blog.

My daughter continues to have issues and her gender identity disorder is getting worse as she gets older. Sad thing is she is also going through early puberty so has started to get boobs which is traumatising her (she is almost 9 years old).
Tommorow her Doctor from London is coming down to our home as we feel she may open up more as to why she feels she should have been born a boy if she is in her own territory so to speak.

I get DLA (Disability Living Allowance) now for her, which has made up for the loss of income by having to cut my working hours to part time and again to term time working only to cope with the many complex issues she has. She got DLA first go, which was brilliant as normally you have to really fight for it and she was awarded high rate care, which was great as she does have a lot of needs.

I am kind of living in limbo at the moment. I am waiting for my islamic divorce but my soon to be ex husband has just returned from 3 months in Dubai and Singapore and continues to stay in my home until he feels ready to move out, which I think is unfair. Since we married in 2009 I have financially supported myself, this home and my child 100% so really there is no point being married. Infact he has told me he is waiting to hear about a job in Dubai and if that does not come through he will move out by begining of December. However he is giving me zero in the way of financial support while he is here and all he does is sit in the home on his laptop, probably doing what he has been doing for the past 3 years which is advertising himself on all the muslim/russian etc matrimonial websites.

Long story about our marraige and one I wont go into until I am finally divorced, by my life right now is utter misery and I just want to be alone in my home with my child and to get my life back on track without feeling so stressed. Infact I have been having a lot of heart palpitations recently which I am sure is stress and I have gained a huge amount of weight as food has always been my drug of choice when misrable.

I am just about to go out with my daughter and her friend Bradley who had a sleep over here last night. I am going to take them to see Madagascar 3, then to Mcdonalds and then drop her friend home. It was mayhem here last night and I now realise I am lucky just to have one child as my patience levels are virtually zero LOL.

I am busy preparing Imanes 9th Birthday party. I have booked the local hall, DJ kids entertainment company, a woman is going to prepare all the food because I would rather pay someone to do it than struggle over making hundreds of sandwiches and all that Jazz. Its costing an absolute fortune but it will be worth it to see my daughter happy.

Thats all for now

I was so lucky 2 weeks ago Alhamdulillah.
It was wednesday 2nd May 2012 and I had just finished my morning duty and was on my way to get some lunch and had the snack list for the office with me (we take it in turns).

My office is outside a very busy and at times dangerous road. Quite a few people have been killed on the crossing, so we are always careful. The crossing has two parts both with the red/green man to let you know to cross safely or not.
I got over the first part and then reached the second part and as I reached it, the road that side was empty except for one car waiting at the traffic lights. As the green man was about to start flashing I waited a few seconds, saw the car was still waiting and started to cross (as soon as you put your foot on the crossing when the green man is either static or flashing, the pedestrian has the right of way). As I reached almost to the pavement the car suddenly shot out.

I turned and knew he was going to hit me and my first thought was my daughter who was at school. Everything happened in slow motion, the car hit me and I got thrown almost 6ft up the road. I remember laying in the road on my side and the driver was standing over me in total shock, I also remember a woman on her bike trying to cycle around my sprawled out body as she shot me a dirty look to say "Get the hell out of my way".

I managed to sit up and put out my hand and asked the driver to help me up. I must of been in shock as he told me he was calling an ambulance and I started scrabbling around in the road trying to pick up my shoe, bag, phone etc and then I told him "No dont do that I am ok I need to go shopping", I then began shaking and crying as it hit me how lucky I was. For some reason I told the driver to get me in his car and drive me round the corner which he did.
The young driver could not stop apologising, he was in more shock than me. He had been on his way to university which is near my office and just saw the lights change and pulled away and he said he never saw me at all on the crossing.
Then the pain began to hit and we called my office and two of my collegues came running round to see what happened.
Despite my objections and despite the fact my chest and arm were really hurting I still refused an ambulance being called (I dont like drama) and did not want the police called as I felt so sorry for this young man (crazy I know) my collegue then went back to the office to get his car and came back and drove me to the A&E

I think the woman on reception must of thought I was a nutter, as I stood there with my handbag and said "I have just been hit by a car and thrown up the road". She looked at me as if to say "Really are you sure" lol.  I assured her I really had and I also had no idea how I was able to walk into A&E unaided.

I was seen my the doctor and had a couple of x-rays and I had no broken bones Alhamdulillah. I ended up with 2 broken toenails, 1 ripped shoe, all over body bruising, one badly bruised and grazed leg and some tenderness in my chest area. I was so lucky Alhamdulillah. The doctor said it was probably because the car was not going too fast and the fact I do carry some extra pounds.
I had 2 days off work and then went back last monday.

I have let the driver know I was ok and although it may have been silly not to call the police, I still feel I did the right thing (my collegue did get his details incase I had suffered serious injury) as he was about to sit his final exams at the end of his 3 year degree, he was on the way to Uni to study and just made a mistake by putting his foot down before looking in front of him. Hopefully it shocked him enough to always check first before hitting the gas.

To clarify a number of judgemental issues raised in a second comment regarding my hooker post from the same person who likes to be anon who I left a post for in answer to her first comment. I was always taught to defend myself, infact answering these comments actually lets people who read my blog know a little more about me. I always have been an open person and as I said before I have nothing to ever be ashamed about. But I need to answer the comment because it insults the memory of O and everything he stood for and that upsets me.

I did not come to UAE way back in early1990 to grab a rich man. Infact I first met O 3 years prior to coming out to the UAE when I was working and I continued to work and finance myself until I came out to UAE 3 years later. O was based in the UK during that time and he knew how much I was facinated with the arab culture and had been since a small child.

When he left early 1990's he asked me to come with him to see if I liked living in a Middle Eastern country so I did and that is how my life began in UAE. You may presume our relationship was a dirty little affair and I am no better than a hooker, but in our culture boyfriend/girlfriend scenario can not be compared to what Hookers do. Most foreign wives married to Emirati's started out their relationship as  boyfriend/girlfriend, so are you saying anyone who married after having a relationship first is the same as a hooker? In my culture this is an insult to compare the two.

And as I said before not every relationship/friendship involves sex. There are many ways to love and support someone even when your not married.
O was a very sick man, many times in the UK I had to rush to the hospital because he was seriously ill and sit by his bedside until one of his family could come over. This continued in UAE, for the first 4 years he was rushed to hospital at least once every 3 or 4 months, so if you would like to presume my relationship was full of lust/sex, then think again. One of his issues was a form of epilepsy and I knew when he was about to have a seizure, infact he had quite a few while I was driving him somewhere and it was horrible but I knew what to do to help him until we got to a hospital and thats one of the reasons outside of the home and work he liked me near him. I could tell he was going to have one at least 5 minutes before it started because his face would change.

In regards to the businesses, he already had a business (he had it for years) that was going down the drain because of terrible staff management so he asked me to take over it. I moved its location, changed the staff added the beauty part to it, painted the whole damn centre myself (yes up ladders with paint and a roller, it took me 12 hours a day for a week), I drilled the holes for the blinds and curtains, fixed the mirrors and shelving on the walls myself (to save paying someone to do it). Negotiated payment plans with the equipment companies and I did that all myself. I ran the business and worked in it every day, the profit paid off the equipment in 6 months so I guess you could say I also financed this business because A) I saved him a ton of money doing all the work myself and B) I worked in the business, was good at what I did and I earned the money to pay everything for the business incuding my staffs salary.

The restaurant he bought himself, it was not something I was interested in and neither did I want but he made me a partner and I had to run it after the beauty centre was closed in the eveing and often at weekends too, I also managed everything about the staff, ordered the stock, did the accounts and PR, even drove the staff too and from work, so in reality it was me that did everything and me that made the money to pay the bills. It was not an easy ride let me tell you, I worked damn hard. When we sold the businesses I did not take one single penny from the sale and those that know me in UAE can vouch for that fact despite having worked hard for a number of years
My graphic design business was 100% mine, financed by me (very small finance was needed, just a computer to be honest, yet I made excellant money).

So if you like to presume I was out for all I could get then thats your choice. If  I was that type of woman then I would have sat back on my backside ordering staff about and going shopping on the profits rather than plouging them back into the business to make it even more profitable and continuing working very hard.

O was my bestfriend, my family, my soulmate, we enjoyed each others company, he loved the fact he could talk for hours about the old UAE days, about the history of his family and that I was happy to just drive into the desert and sit listening to very old khaleeji music while we discussed UAE political issues, problems with friends and family. He loved the fact I was not a self centred woman only interested in money, going shopping and material things. That I always put myself out to help people when he asked me to even his own wife and children. My relationship was something you could never understand and you insult me and his memory in your judgemental and very very wrongly assumed comments because it was so far from what you suggest. When I converted to Islam in 1999 I stopped going out alone with him and doing the things we used to do such as going for dinner with friends, camping in the desert and me just driving him around talking and I know that upset him but he understood that as a muslim now It was not acceptable.
He has been dead 6 years this year, and I still miss him dreadfully and I always will and I know he loved me right up until the day he died because I was one of the only people in his life that really understood him.

This will be my last post on this matter.

I absolutly love Falcons and I remember many times I asked O if I could have my own one.
I was fortunate to have been taken into the desert quite a few times by O's cousin Hazeem and was shown how to hunt (Hazeem used to help train the late Sheikh Zayed's falcons many years ago and also travelled with him when he went hunting) .

They are such a majestic bird and Falconry (Al Qanas) was a favorite activity of Sheikh Zayed and many of the Sheikhs and UAE locals and is still a very traditional sport today.

I remember sometimes on  flights to and from Qatar that young locals and Qatari's would get on the flight with their falcons and would sit with them on their arm as the plane was in the air. Im not sure if that is allowed today, but back then nobody flinched when birds were in the passenger section of the plane.

There are two types of falcon used for hunting in UAE "Saqr" which is the most popular and the Peregrine.
The male Saqr is called  Garmoush and the female is called Al Hurr. Believe it or not the female Saqr is used more often due to it being larger and more powerful than the male. The same goes for the Peregrine, the female (Shahin) is often thought a better hunter than the male (Shahin Tiba).
The Saqr is more favoured by the Emirati mainly due to the fact it is well suited to desert hunting.

You need to have a lot of patience and courage to train a falcon to be ready to hunt. Trainers are known as Saqqar's and they have the skills to teach the bird to hunt and return to its owner.

The little cap the falcon wears is know as Al Burgu and it is made of decorated leather and covers the falcons eyes. This is due to the fact the falcons have very sharp vision acuity and the Al Burgu helps the falcon to be slowly adjusted to new environments. The trainer or falcon owner will also have with him a canvas bag known as Al Mukhlat which inside often has pigeon or houbara wings so that he can use the contents of the bag to lure the falcon back. The lure of the falcon is know as Milwah or Tilwah.

If you have ever seen photos of falcon hunting you will see the bird often perches upon a seat type thing. This is known as the Wakir and it is normally a very ornamated long wooden stand with a flat padded top so the falcon can rest his claws.
When the bird sits on the trainer or owners arm, the arm is protected by the sharp talons of the falcon by a covered cuff called a Manqalah. This is made from material often stuffed with straw or some type of cloth.
The owner needs to restrain the falcon especially after a catch so they use light but strong tethers which are fitted to the falcons ankles. These are usually stong and flexible braided nylon around 30cm's long known as  Subuq and are then tied together to make a shorter cord. this is then attached to a swivel, both cords and swivel allow the falcon some freedom of movement.while not allowing it to actually fly. The whole thing is know as the Mursel.

When hunting is to start the owner will usually shout Yalla and the falcon will lift off flaping its huge wings so it is able to reach a powerful assent into the sky. Once the falcon spots its prey it chases it which can last quite a while. Once the prey slows down, the falcon swoops down onto the prey and pulls it to the desert floor. In UAE the falcon's main prey is Houbara, Stone Curlew (Karawan) and Hare (Arnab). As the Houbara in particular is such a large and speedy bird, this is a particular favorite for owner and falcon to hunt as it makes the thrill of the chase more exciting.

The falcon and owner have an amazing relationship and both have a great deal of respect for each other.
I never got my own falcon because O told me he did not think I had the patience to be able to spend time training it. However on the rare occasions I got to go out with these beautiful birds and see them in action, I loved every minute of it.

I recieved a comment on my blog post Knickers on the Ceiling Fan and all the Jazz, of course left as anon. I knew I would get one or two, it was expected. But here it is:
Im sorry i can not help but think that you were just in the same position as those and the same level as them with the only difference that you gave exclusive service to O , and i say this because i am sure he was sponsoring uou and your glammy life and pay your bills , house , cloths , etc. so is just matter of geography, when the man was married with family and would never leave them for you or even take you as a wife cause i am sure you were not worth the price he would pay for doing that , well in any case he got everything he wanted without having to do so , so there you go! ... Don't fool yourself thinking the rest if the man respected you, they All knew who you were and what you were and took you for exactly that otherwise they would never do such things in your presence or uou would say they eould fo that if one of their lawfull emiratis wives would be there? .... So please next time do bot talk low of others when you do nit have the moral authority to fo so , if now you have changed good for you but back then you were not better or different than them, and it pisses me off when you di not even realize it! .... By the way if you write a book call it fir what it is " memoirs of a exclusive hooker" or do

In answer to this poster first I would say WHY does my post Piss you off, was I talking about you?
I was sharing stories from the past, it would be unfair to just talk about all the nice things as it would not be a truthful blog of experience. And I have high morals dear anon, and more respect than you as would never dream to leave a comment full of bile on someones blog who I do not know personally. You seem to take the story so personally, why is that and why the need to post anon?

I would like to clarify the following.

1) I was not an exclusive HOOKER, and I also did not have my glammy lifestyle provided for me. I owned and ran two very busy businesses. One being a resturant in the Al Mamzar area, the other was a very high class and respected Hair and Beauty Centre on the trade center road with British staff, both business were featured along with a story about me in Gulf News. I worked from 8am until often 1am. After we sold the businesses due to O's bad health and the fact I was getting very tired running both I then ran a very successful web and graphic design business from home and was featured again in Gulf News.

2) I always knew O would never taken a second wife, its not something his family does. However when we met he had said he was divorced, this I found to not be true after I arrived in UAE. However despite that we were best friends, he was loved by my family and he was a father, brother, uncle to me. He was there for me and he protected me best he could and I knew his wife, his children and got on very well with them. So your comment that basically states I was his hooker is so far from the truth...not all relationships are sex based, although maybe your's are.

3) The comment about the friends not respecting me and that they all knew who I was. OH YES, they knew who I was and thats why I was introduced and socialised with their wifes, sisters and kids. Got invited to weddings and their families parties. What they chose to do in their spare time was not something I could change. However 99% of the people I saw commiting sin were not from our group, but people who just turned up at for a free weekend and this was normally at the farm. I had a fantastic relationship with our social circle who were in the majority very influential people in UAE. You forget that most of my story centers around the time these hookers started to arrive during our weekends and that was not until around 1998 and is not about the entire time I was there which was 13 years and I stopped going to the farm in 1999 anyway.
You also forget that O and our friends whisked me away as soon as these girls arrived, in the hope when we returned much later in the evening they would be gone. The main farm we stayed on did not allow these people to enter, it was only at the other farm that they would turn up and it was on those occasions that I had to witness the carrying on.

And for YOUR information NEVER ONCE did anyone from our friends lay a finger on me, or try to lay a finger on me, so your disgusting comment that they took me as a hooker just shows what a small mind you have. 99% of the time spent with our friends was fantastic, we went fishing, drives in the desert, travelled to places such as Oman, went out for dinner to good restaurants, horse and camel racing, we sate for hours debating politics and views on the world. Your comment is so out of order because you have based your views on one blog post and assumed my entire life in UAE was as that blog post. Infact that blog post probably represented 0.0001% of my time in UAE.

And of course they would not drink or bring hookers in front of their wives, are you mad? I was a British expat, non muslim who was able to mix freely with both men and women just as I had done in the UK. I also did not own them so I had no say in what they chose to do. They also did not deliberatly set out to do anything unjust in front of me. It just happened on rare occasions (not farm related) we turned up when something had already been arranged, if they knew I was coming, 100% would the other guests not be allowed to visit.
The farm however, if you bother to read the blog post properly, was when someone outside of the group turned up with a 4x4 full of women who ply their trade when he knew the farm would be full.
That is why we spent as much time away from the farm when they were there as possible and why eventually we as a group stopped going all together. I highlighted one particular story when we had no choice but to stay (I do not feel in the need to go into detail why).

Let me tell you Ms Anon, still today people in UAE remember me with respect. I was 100% respectful, never did I put a foot out of line, never did a break a rule. Never did I sell my body for sex. I ran companies, and I ran them well. I enjoyed going out when time allowed and I socialised with O's friends, however that all stopped when I converted to Islam and probably quite a few years before. If my reputation was so shit, why on earth would I then be invited to live as part of an Emirati family in their house??? If my friends thought I was some cheap whore, do you think they would have had me in the house? Do you really think I would be allowed to mix with their wives and kids??? NO I dont think so. Do you think I would have been invited to offical functions?? No.
But I was, so this proves the point.
They also trusted me to be around their families and not talk about their life outside of the home. Most of the wives I am sure knew their husbands drank and probably had girlfriends but it was not my place to tell them so.

When I first arrived in UAE I knew no one except O, therefore rather than spending the time alone I went out in the evening and if it happened that we visited someone who had already arranged something sinful then there was not much we could do other than choose to leave, which we always did except on the farm. You forget it was not a case of just getting into the car and leaving. Our group all travelled in 1 4x4, if something happened such as the night with the hookers, we could not just up and leave especially so as our friend who drove the car always had some business connected with his farm at the weekend. Near the end I started taking my own car or would travel with Fay and her husband so we just upped and left when something happened.

Some people have friends who are drug addicts, some who drink too much, does this mean the people who mix with them are also addicts and drunks? NO it does not. Therefore just because a few people I knew liked a hooker or two does not mean anyone else who mixed with them liked it too and neither did it mean that I was also a HOOKER. You forget in the UK women do not just sit and mingle with women, often women sit with men and just men, does not mean they are having sex with them, we have men as friends and see nothing wrong with being in a room full of men and we KNOW how to behave and respect ourselves.

But this blog is to talk about the good, bad and ugly of UAE. My life was not a round of drunken, hooker fuelled parties. I had a very interesting life however occasionally something would happen such as the hooker stories, so why not share it. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I was raised with high morals and to respect myself and my body and I have ALWAYS done that and will always continue to do that and that is why I WAS Respected in UAE despite what your nasty little mind thinks.

As a last note, if these people thought I was what you claim they thought I was, why on earth would a member of the Fujeriah Royal family go out of his way to protect me while in Kalba, by giving me his car (his number plate told everyone who's car it was) to drive so no one would bother me when I wanted to go out on my own while there, bring his small children to meet me and arrange my conversion to Islam by personally speaking with the judge at the sharia court in fujeriah. If I had a reputation as a cheap hooker with no morals, I can assure you this person would not have been associated with me at all.

Some of my UAE memories could be frowned upon, but I believe in revealing the rough and the smooth .

Today my memory bank opens up about "Hookers". And Hookers were one of the reasons I stopped going to Kalba for the weekend.

Anyone who lives in UAE today knows there is a serious Hooker problem. (Hooker, Prostitute or whatever you want to call those girls (or men) of ill repute). Despite what some would call my quite glam lifestyle up until the last year I was there, I did get to witness quite a bit of the seediness that goes on. I will try to write this post as humorous as I can.

My first encounter was about the 4th day I was in UAE. "O" used to drop me each day down at the Chicago Beach Hotel so I could laze all day on the private almost deserted sandy beaches, dine in the restaurant there until I had had enough then I used to have the driver pick me up and drop me home to get ready for the evening.
I was lying on this deserted beach, soaking up the sun in my one piece Marks and Spencer swimsuit when suddenly this toned, bronzed man in a pair of Budgie Smugglers (tight skimpy swim briefs) walked out of the sea and walked towards me. "In an obvious arabic accent he purred at me "Hi Habibi, do you have a light?", as I rummaged in my bag and pulled out my lighter he said "and a cigarette too". He then said "Hayati I can do such special thing to you, make you tingle, special price for you Habibi 200 dirhams, you never forget experience at bargain price" I about fell off the sun lounger, what the heck, this guy had just emerged from the sea like a sea monster and was now trying to get me to pay him 200 dirhams to make me tingle. This was an Islamic country, what the heck was this guy playing at.

I gave him some choice words and got up and moved further along the beach to another sun lounger. (in those days the beaches were virtually deserted). I sat there eyes hidden behind my Gucci's but actually watching him out of the corner of my eye as he sauntered along the beach chest puffed out, hips wiggling, and trying to seductivly puff on the cigarette I had just given him. I saw him spot two very overweight women who I had seen in the changing rooms/showers earlier on in the day and who I knew to be German. He plonked himself down next to these two women and I saw him beging to stroke the larger of the two's leg, next thing I knew he was helping her up off the sun lounger and they dissapeared into the hotel so I guessed he had found a customer and probably when he finished with her, he came back for her friend.

I did not stick around to find out, I was quite horrified to be honest and as I walked back into the hotel I launched myself at the first member of staff I saw and told them what happened.
It did not seem to suprise the staff member and all he said was "Oh they swim over from the public beach, difficult to catch them".

When I saw "O" that night even he was shocked when I told him, he told me maybe I was confused and maybe the guy was trying to sell me something (well he was, but it definatly was not a watch, handbag or couple of coconuts).

My second encounter quite shocked me, infact I think my mouth hung open and my eyes were on stalks because I just could not believe what I was seeing. I had not long arrived in UAE and we were spending the evening at our friends luxurious apartment on Al Maktoum street (he did not live there it was just a place to play darts, cook and spend an evening with friends (or so I thought). I was sitting chatting with a couple of friends about something going on in Dubai when the doorbell rang. The houseboy answered it and in walked 4 tall women completely covered from head to toe (abaya, shayla and niqab). I got quite excited thinking these were probably quite respectable women and that it would be fun to talk to them and get an idea of their mentality. Oh Boy was I in for a suprise. One sat opposite me still with her abaya and niqab on when she suddenly opened up her abaya and sat there in a very unlady like position (lets just say she looked as though she was doing the splits) and it was obvious she had very little on let alone any underwear. She then began cooing over one of our friends as I tried to find another place to look but by then her 3 friends had stripped off the abaya's revealing what could only be classed as probably the skimpiest outfit sold in Victoria Secrets and they began to gyrate like they were performing at a strip club. I was HORRIFIED. I hissed at O what the heck was going on and to get me the hell out of there and he told me the girls flew over from Bahrain for shopping etc but made some pocket money on the side (I am guessing from their form of entertainment which involved a lot more than gyrating on a persian rug). When one of the old boys dissapeared into one of the bedrooms with one of the girls, O agreed to take me home. I think we argued on the drive home as I was so disgusted and I made him promise that if his friends ever arranged for these women to come over when O planned to take me there, that it was best I stayed home alone, just incase anyone thought I was of their type. O later told me these girls were Bahraini and that really suprised me. O did not agree with his friends playing around with what he called "Those rubbish ladies" especially so as most of the guys held respectable positions in society, but they were still his friends and it was not his place to tell them to stop. But whenever we went to our friends for dinner etc I spent the whole time on edge everytime the doorbell went, thinking some tarts were about to arrive for the evenings

I never really noticed the East European Hookers in UAE until around 1993, I noticed my first one in Burjuman following a local guy around and she was trying to walk beside him and quite loudly wispering ("you not wanna giva me 100, then giva me 50 and I do special job, come habibi have heart"). I at first thought she was his wife and begging for more pocket money or something, then it dawned on me what she was actually doing. They never really bothered me at first as I never came across any thankfully in my social life, despite many of O's friends enjoying the company of ladies of the night. However they did start to creep into our tight knit circle and I hated it.

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent every weekend in Kalba and it was so much fun. Some of the hangers on that followed us to Kalba from other Emirates were a bit dubious and one of them started turning up with in a 4X4 full of East European girls. It was obvious what he had brought them to the farms for and I really disliked it because I was highly respected and everyone thought of me as their sister but when these girls arrived it made me feel very uncomfortable especially when anyone new visited the farms because some assumed I was in the same line of business as these girls. Of course from the start any new people were totally put in their place if they even so much as tried to approach me in an undignified manner but I still hated even sitting in the same majlis as these women, so O and I and a couple of our other friends used to make a point of going out for long drives just to be away from them. I remember once we had gone out to the Fujeriah Hilton for the evening and when we arrived back we walked into the main majlis of O's cousins farm (where we were staying that weekend) and there were 4 bleached blonde hookers. As I walked into the majlis everyone stood up for me, those closest to me kissed he top of my head as they would there own sister or child, the others nodded their head at me. As I sat down I heared one of the hookers loudly say to the idiot who brought them to the farm "Who is this Bitch, why is she here, why they stand for her and not me, maybe she charge a lot". Well I just turned and flipped on this chick and told her the snot in my nose had more class than she did, I did not need to flap my flaps at men to make money, I earnt it the right and legal way and the reason people stood up for me was because my reputation was spotless.

The weekend that really ended my weekends in Kalba was the weekend this hanger on turned up with 2 of the roughest looking females I had ever seen. If they were cats then they were of the standard of the UAE street cats.
As usual he brought the girls when most of the guests were fully tanked up on Johnny Walker Red Label, Im guessing because he knew the mens vision was blurred through booze and they would not realise these girls had done the rounds a bit and looked like a couple of un-neutered Ally Cats.
My best friend Fay and her Emirati husband (they were not married at that time though) were spending the weekend on the farm with us. Fay is blonde so she was disgusted that she would be sharing a farm with these women as she knew anyone who did not know her would assume she was one too.

Fay and I escaped out of the majlis that evening and headed to the farm pool, putting some music on and making sure her husband and O made it clear to everyone that they were not to go anywhere near us. After a long swim, lots of laughs and chatting we went back to the farm Majlis and there was one of the hookers who had taken over the master suite, servicing one after the other of the visitors who were arriving by the dozen. We sat and watched one after the other dissapear into the bedroom obviously getting a full service and as one came out the next went in (we counted 9 men in the space of a couple of hours or so).
Well Fay is not one to mince words and I believe we both loudly screamed at everyone what a dirty bunch of sad men they were, how disgusting they were to do that to a women who was also doing that to their friends, one after the other without even having a wash inbetween. How they should be totally ashamed when they returned to their wives and children on Friday and suggested they all go get some tests done asap.
From that moment on I told O that although this was out of his control, I could not longer spend my weekends worrying these hooker were going to arrive and could not accept to even be in the same room as them. I could not sit back and witness what I had witnessed that particular night, men who held good positions, married men with kids, ramming away at some Ally Cat hooker.

In the morning Fay and I woke early and went for a drive. When we arrived back there were the Ally Cats looking rougher than before sitting crossed legged eating eggs obviously not wearing underwear. Fay dissapeared into the section of the farm where all the bedrooms were and then came back and told me to follow her. She led me into the bedroom where all the action had taken place and then into the en-suite bathroom and then burst out laughing as she pointed to something hanging on the towel rail. There hanging in all there glory was a huge pair of granny knickers with the most disgusting crotch I had ever seen. It was a mixture of greenish brown, it literally was a crust. We knew who they belonged to so Fay got a broom and hooked these monster knickers on the end of the broom and we walked into the Majlis in front of everyone and flicked them up onto the ceiling fan. There was everyone looking up as these nasty knickers were slowly going round and round. I then turned to the women who had been entertaining the night before and said "I thought your knickers could do with some air".

So that was our last real weekend in Kalba, we only went back occasionally when it was made obvious to all the hangers on they were not welcome. I think one of the last times we went back was the weekend of October 1999 when Fay and I converted to Islam in fujeriah sharia court.

I understand that some of the women who come to UAE and ply their trade are forced to and I feel sorry for them but many many women chose to come. Some may argue that these women are poor and need the money, but there are millions of terribly poor people around the world who live without flapping their flaps for a buck or too. Call me judgemental, I dont mind, but my blog is to share memories, both good and bad and although some may say this kind of thing does not happen I can assure you 100% it did and probably still does.

Its the weekend here in UK and as usual I have done nothing more than endless housework and worry about what my daughter has been up to. (she is 8 but has just been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum so she does not understand life and dangers as others do).

Last night I was remembering how my weekends used to be up until really the time I converted to Islam in 1999 and Oh how I loved them even though they were basically the same every weekend.

We always went to Kalba for the weekend, it was a weekly tradition and we always had the same routine. Back in those days the weekend started thursday lunchtimes and I was always told to be ready and packed to go by 1pm. Around 1.30pm Omran, Ahmed and Rashid would pull up outside my home in Ahmed's 4x4 and in I would get. We then drove to Kalba, stopping along the way for our usual supplies such as ice, cheese, bread and anything else we needed.
We always had such fun on the drive, listening to very old Khaleeji music on the tape deck, stopping the 4x4 now and again as we drove through what I used to call the Naked Mountains on the way to Fujeriah to chat with friends who were driving on the same road or had stopped to BBQ somewhere as everyone kept in touch thursday afternoon via mobile checking up what the plans were.

I loved Fujeriah, back then there was not much there, it was quite ghost townish really with only a smatter of hotels. I always loved it when we reached the coffee pot roundabout as I knew our fun was about to start. We then headed to Kalba and for those that dont know Kalba, its literally a right turn off the coffee pot roundabout, drive along the corniche and then we used to turn off down a rocky road.
Back then there were no roads to get to the farms, you had to drive through rocks which had worn down in time to resemble a road. It was very bumpy and if you did not know the area you would have got totally lost.
We always stayed in Ahmed's farm until the last few years when we stayed in Omrans cousins farm but other friends also had farms that we took turns to have thursday night fun in or friday lunch.
Once we arrived Ahmeds staff helped unload the car and then we all got settled into our rooms. The main farm house at first just had 3 large bedrooms, but there was also another house within the grounds that could sleep about 20 people, so we had plenty of room for guests who always turned up on a thursday evening. Often we would then go out to buy fish, fruit and veg, stop off to see friends at their farms and make arrangements for who was hosting the evenings entertainment.
From about 6pm people began to turn up in their 4x4's from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and most of the other emirates. Sometimes there would be as many as 40 people there and believe it or not I was 99% of the time the only female. I am guessing some people reading this would be shocked, but I was so respected by everyone, they treated me as they would their own sister. Everyone stood up for me when I walked into a room and coming from a western background being around a load of men did not faze me in the slightest.
I think in all those years of weekends in Kalba I only had trouble from new guests who had never met me and assumed I was a hooker brought there to entertain, a couple of times and they were soon put in their place and made to apologise.

Omran always made a point on thursday evenings to take me out shopping in the little shops in Kalba to buy dress material to have made into the arabic dresses I loved and sometimes to the little gold shops to buy a bracelet or something and then onto the Fujeriah Hilton before the farm became engulfed with half of UAE. We would set off around 9pm and play darts with the smattering of expats that also weekend in Fujeriah and to listen to the Filipino band. Back then the Hilton was virtually empty on a thursday evening. UAE was not very known to the world in those days, so you could move around and enjoy yourself without all the thousands of people there today. On the way back to the farm we always stopped so I could buy my cream cheese and little fromage frais yogurts and chicken shwarma's as I totally refused to eat what they always cooked on thursday nights (a whole sheep still with head and legs on).
By the time we reached the farm again it was full to the brim with 4X4's from all over the UAE and the farm house overflowing with men in their white dish dasha's. For the rest of the evening we all sat in a huge circle playing drums and oud and singing tradition songs and Khaleeji hits of the day. I always remember one piece of drumming the men did which I loved and they sang out what sounded like "Toob Toob". Always they ended up singing a very very famous song of the Khaleej that Omran wrote. I can not remember the name of it, but its a very famous song and not many know it was written by Omran. Infact the story goes that when Mahad Hamed was starting out, Omran gave him the song and he pretty much became famous after that, although that may just be a fairy story. But Mahad Hamed did used to sing it and it was one of his well known songs. All I know about the song is that it tells the story of a man in the desert who spots a beautiful bedouin girl and how he falls totally in love. Omran was a great poet to be honest.

Thursday night continued usually until around 6am friday morning, you never really slept in those days to be honest.
Friday was fish day. Those who ended up staying the night at the farm or at friends farms near us would again swarm to Ahmeds around lunchtime where we would all sit arabic style and eat our fish lunch. Normally we had about 5 types of fish and it was so scrummy.
Everyone would have a little nap after lunch, so I always took the oppotunity to swim in the pool that was surrounded by Jasmine bushes. Omran always came with me just to make sure I was safe on the small chance someone we did not know well would want to oggle me in my swimsuit.
Often on a thursday afternoon not long after we arrived our friend Sheikh Hamdan Al Sharqi would pop by to say hello and he always brought me a handpicked bunch of Jasmine from his garden and some mangoes and sometimes something sweet like the time he brought me a white toy fluffy monkey. He did not speak any english back in those days except hello or bye, but he used to chatter away to me in Arabic anyway. I think he respected me a lot especially how I could be in the middle of all those men and behave impecably and how everyone respected me so much.
Sometimes if I was a little bored in the evening on a thursday after the trip to the Hilton and wanted to go out driving alone Sheikh Hamdan would give me his brown 4x4 (I believe it was a Nissan Patrol) with the number 2 numberplate (back in those days one digit number plates were for Sheikhs only) as he said no one would mess with me while driving his car. I remember it had sheepskin everywhere inside and the windows were totally black including half the front windscreen. I found it so difficult to drive that I had to drive with the windows down. Once I pulled up at an Epco garage on the way out of Fujeriah and there were loads of young locals having a get together in the forecourt. They all stood to attention I am guessing thinking Hamdan was about to get out and then out jumped me in my abaya and jogging shoes lol. To say chins hit the floor is an understatement and we all used to joke back at the farm that by the morning rumours around Fujeriah would be flowing about Sheikh Hamdan having a new wife.

We always departed Kalba around 8pm, driving in convoy sometimes back to Dubai, stopping occasionally to BBQ something, stopping at the Friday Market which was very tiny in those days to buy silly things or to buy those BBQ'ed corn on the cobs that stuck to your teeth.
Those were good days but they sadly over time became something I did not enjoy when one of the friends (well he was disliked by most people really but still turned up), started turning up with 4x4's full of Russian hookers. But that is another story and one I will tell another time. When that began to happen I basically stopped going, and then I converted to Islam and my weekends in Kalba stopped alltogether. I have many more stories of weekends in Kalba but I will save those for the day I write my book, but the story about the hookers I plan to share next on my blog.

For years people have been telling me to write a book on my years in UAE and maybe one day I will start it, because in all honesty my life in UAE really was unique, especially so as I was not married to an Emirati yet still got to live the full Emirati life style.

Of course when I write it I have to change all names of people because many of the locals I knew and socialised with are still alive today and are still prominent members of UAE society.

Some could say my life was quite glamorous, I guess it was in relation to my previous life in UK, but that was only surface glamour, the reality was often far far different and I plan to expose not only the good but also the bad when I finally get round to writing.
I have read some books based on UAE life and the only one I found interesting was "Mother Without a Mask" which delved into the real Emirati culture and traditions rather than the typical adultury, bling, poor girl wants rich arab scenario.

Back in the old days I was know as The British Bedu, thats what the locals called me. I adopted local dress (not just abaya) from about the 2nd year I was there because it just made life easier. I learnt how to camp in the desert bedu style, hunt for local mushrooms and vegetation you could eat, how to hunt with a falcon, how to entertain, gained a love for wearing the oud attar so famous in the Gulf, I learnt about the mentality of the locals and what offends them, how to behave etc. I did not strive to do all this, it was just part of my life and I learnt it along the way.

Designer handbags, shopping, having the latest and best of everything was not my scene, back then it was not really important to anyone to be honest. People preferred to camp out, have a BBQ in the mountains of fujeriah, sit on the beach with a 5 Dirham fishing line trying to catch hamour, sit around playing drums and oud and having a sing song, that was the life of choice, not as it is today with spending hours in a shopping mall or glitzy restaurant trying to outdo everyone, bragging about what you have, who your married to, how much money your husband has etc. Back then money was not talked about, you basically knew who had what by the car they drove but money was just not discussed.

I remember the old Nad Al Sheba race course, when I see racing in UAE on the TV now, you have all the glamour dolly's out there dressed to the nines, with their hardly there dresses on, hair extensions, makeup you could scrap off, its transformed into what racing is like here in the UK. But back then you just turned up as you were and enjoyed the race, you did not care to try to outshine everyone else or get noticed. We often sat in the royal box and I used love it because you got lots of nice little snacks etc lol, it did not bother me or excite me at all that Sheikh Mohammed and other shiekhs were sitting just a few rows in front of me, I was more interested in the cake being offered by the waiter. I never really dressed up either, mainly because it was a last minute decision to attend. I often just had on a traditional emirati dress and never felt out of place because no one else had really bothered to dress up either.

I have been gone from UAE 8 years this July. Yes my heart still hurts terribly, I have still never got over having to leave, but I had no choice because of my daughter. I ache for the old days which have long gone, I re-live them often in my dreams, days that will never come again because of the massive changes and the influx of half the world who see UAE as a place to play, not as I did as a magical, mysterious country full of rich culture.

So I wonder sometimes if I wrote a book if anyone would be interested to actually read it. Are people interested in the Old??? or do they just want to hear about the glitz and glamour of today?
I think to be able to write a good book about life in UAE you need to have experienced the old in my opinion.

There are three things I miss the most about UAE. One is my late partner Omran Al Shamsi, who was my best friend, soul mate and my everything. second is the sound of the call for prayer especially the early morning one and lastly is being unable to sleep and getting into my car and driving in the early hours of the morning from Dubai to Fujeriah and back again, watching the sun rise over the mountains as I drove with music from Mahad Hamed playing on the tape deck (yes it was so long ago cars still had them).

One of the things your not supposed to do in UAE is slurp all over your partner in public, especially so if your not married.
Staying in a hotel room together, having sex and kissing in public is forbidden if your not married, the latter also goes for married couples.

So I was shocked today to see in the Daily Mail newspaper that Z List celebrity Kerry Katona parading around on a beach in Dubai slurping all over her latest fella http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2110329/Kerry-Katona-hands-boyfriend-Steve-Alce-shows-curves-sexy-polka-dot-bikini.html.
How come all the celebs (if you can call most of them that), get away with laying on top of each other in public, kissing, touching each other up etc yet they do not get arrested or warned. Yet time and time again you read stories of normal couples being arrested for doing no more than kissing each other on the cheek.

Why are celebs allowed to get away with this indecency in public and no one else??? It astounds me.

UAE has strict decency laws which do not appear these days to be relevant if your a celeb.
I think its really unfair, you cant pick and choose who you will throw in the jail and who you will not. This is a side of UAE I do not like at all.

I honestly feel since I left UAE in 2004 that it has attracted the Chavs by the bucket load. Before UAE was such a mysterious place, most people had never heared of it, now it attracts anyone and anything and I feel eventually UAE will totally loose the little culture they have left and that makes me sad.
If I was Emirati I would be devistated right now to know that my country was on the same level as Benidorm as a holiday destination in the sense that it appears to be a free for all place for the drunk, half naked, could not give a damn westerners who arrive from all over the globe with virtually no respect for the culture and traditions AND Laws of UAE.

As I have said many many times on my blog, although I miss UAE with all my heart I am glad I got out when I did because I have not had my memories tarnished by what goes on there today.

British citizens may complain about the UK government but what they need to remember is that when your down on your luck, especially when you have kids that you at least get given money to put food on the table and a roof over your head.

Elsewhere in the world your left to fend for yourself, you get bugger all.
David Cameron intends to limit the amount a family can get to £26,000 a year which is far more than the gross salary of the average UK working person and some people are in uproar about this.

The welfare system was created to get people out of a tight spot when they lost their job or fell on hard times. It was not created to become a way of life as many families in UK use it for.
The amount of young mothers in UK is scary. They get pregnant from a young age and despite not working continue to have child after child putting the burden of raising those children on the tax paying people of the UK. When they feel they are not getting enough or their house is too small they scream blue murder blaming the government, their local council etc when in reality it was their life style choice that put them in that situation.

When your unemployed the UK government gives you an amount to live on for yourself, an amount per child, plus child benefit per child, free school dinners, subsidised school trips, free dental and medicine even free pet care. Plus you get your rent and council tax paid. The money your given is supposed to put food on the table, clothe the family and to pay the utilities such as gas, electricity and water. IT IS NOT to spend of £60 trainers for your 6 month old, Sky TV, getting your fake tan and nails done, 52inch plasma TVs, nights out at a club at the weekend, trips down the pub to get drunk 3 times a week etc.

Some families in the UK are raking in £50,000 plus a year in benefits. One cheek of a family had never worked a day in their life and were about to have their 12th child, crying to the newspapers how their evil local council would not give them a bigger house. WHY SHOULD THEY, you breed them, you feed them, end of.
It is 2012, not 2000BC, your choice of contraception is huge, there is no excuse to get pregnant 4, 5, 6 plus times by mistake and then go out with your begging bowl to the government blaming them for your situation.
I know things around the world are tough job wise, lots of people want to work but just cant find anything. I have full sympathy for these people and you will rarely find anyone who tries hard to find work breeding like a rabbit or complaining about they money the government gives them. The ones who scream loudest are the ones who have made living on welfare a way of life.

I have worked since my daughter was 1.5 years old. I work hard, I pay all my own bills, my rent, my council tax, I dont get free school dinners, free pet care, susidised school trips, subisdised after school club rates despite actually having less money than a family on benefits.

I fully agree with what David Cameron is doing right now. I also hope in the future he limits the amount of money you can get to 3 children. If you continue to breed while living off the tax payer after 3 kids then your on your own.
One thing I hate is seeing kids who have welfare dependant (by choice) parents, dressed like ragamuffins, with blackened teeth, holes in their shoes, dodgy home haircuts while their mothers are standing outside the school gate tarted up to the nines with fake tan and nails, dragging on a fag and talking about going out clubbing and getting hammered at the weekend. Breeding kids to get more money from the government is criminal. If you get money for your kids then that money is for YOUR kids, not for them to be dressed in PVC shit shoes from the Chav shack with their trousers so outgrown there up by their knees, so you can got out and get pissed at the weekend with your tart tan and your outfit from Zara and ensuring your have your 20 fags a day money.

Sorry for the rant but it really makes me CRAZY

So much has been going on recently that I seem not to have time to blog much.

Another sadness. My Aunt Sue who lived in Long Island New York passed away just over 2 weeks ago. She fought a long hard battle against cancer but did not win the fight. My father booked his flight on the sunday morning to try to reach her before she passed, and sadly my aunt passed away that evening.
I feel sorry for my father as Sue was his only sibling, not only that he has lost his wife (my mother) and his youngest daughter (my sister) and now his own sister all to the same terrible disease CANCER.
May Allah give him strength to bear this sad loss.

I continue to have serious problems with my daughter. My daughter is 8 years old and has Gender Identity Disorder, which I have written about before on my blog. Basically she is 100% female but her brain is telling her she is male. It is not a phase she is going through, she is not just being a Tom Boy, she really does have a serious problem and is totally tormented being in a female body.
Recently the crap daily rag "Daily Mail" wrote some really terrible articles on GID (Gender Identity Disorder) and ripped apart the wonderful Tavistock Clinic in London which my daughter attends. Basically the article said that this is a label parents and doctors give kids who really should just be classed as Tom Boys or a bit infeminant. It also claimed the Tavistock drugs everyone to delay puberty and then puts further ideas in their mind that the kid was born the wrong sex. Of course all the numpty armchair critics (ie the small minded general public who post in the comment section) jumped onto the bandwagon, all giving their opinion most claiming they knew kids who liked to dress as the opposite sex but they turned out ok.

GID is NOT about dressing as the opposite sex, its about torment, of self harm and many other factors that make live misrable for the child. Imane now has hair cropped so short, we had to let her have it cut like a boy because yet again she took the scissors to her hair and hacked it to pieces. Then she got hold of a razor and sliced half her top lip off trying to shave. She talks about not wanting to live sometimes if she gets breasts when she is older and also tells me often that her vagina is ugly and it needs to be sewn shut with a needle and thread. That is what GID is about.
Often once purberty hits the child either stays as they are or they start to embrace being the sex they were born as. As a very last resort they may use Puberty delay drugs. Its a long process of therapy and can take years. Right now my daughters doctor talks to her on a monthly basis trying to get to the bottom of why she feels that she is in the wrong body. Was it something growing up that triggered that feeling or is her brain wire mapped as a male? We wont know for a long long time and until that time I have to support my child as best I can.

Of course being muslim it is hard, a lot of the muslim community including my daughters birth father are small minded on these subjects and cant accept it believing an Imam at the mosque will sort her out. SO NOT TRUE.

On top of the GID my daughter may have Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome which you can read about http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/related-conditions/pda-pathological-demand-avoidance-syndrome.aspx. I have been trying for years to find out what is wrong with my daughter and on doing many months of research came across this syndrome which is on the autism spectrum and when I read the symptoms it was as though it had been written for my child. It is my daughter 100%. Now her doctor in London, her school and our own doctor in Brighton are fighting to get seen by CAHMS in Brighton so she can get assessed and hopefully diagnosed. However so far we have been refused by CAHMS because they say my daughters problems are too complex. Please pray for my daughter and also pray for me because sometimes I find life very difficult and worry oneday I am going to crack from the stress of it all.

On top of all that we are going through a massive restructure at work with the Housing Service about to change drastically. Our jobs will be changed and we probably will not be working with the people we have worked alongside for years.

But HEY HO, at least I am alive Alhamdulillah.

I have just found out about the death of my friends father.

Pir Pagara was the spiritual leader of the Hurs and chief of the Pakistan Muslim League Functional party.

I lived with his daughter Kausar on a large farm in Al Awir, Dubai, of which I have written about previously on my blog. Not only was Pir Pagara a great family man, but he was also a very important political figure in Pakistan.

I had the pleasure to meet him quite a few times during one of my trips to Karachi with Kausar and I always remember him getting me to recite Surah Al Fatiha to him after we had all had dinner after which he gave me a gift of some beautiful cream, gold and red silk to have made into one of my emirati dresses. My thoughts today are with Kausar and her brothers and the rest of the family.

Tribute http://tribune.com.pk/story/319690/pir-pagara-passes-away-the-political-oracle-goes-silent/