Travel chaos

I have neglected the blog. I have been busy working, mothering and preparing for Christmas.

We debated long and hard about whether to go to the UK for Christmas; December is such a glorious time of the year in Bahrain. But the girls were adamant. They wanted snow.

And snow we had. In abundance. Too much of the damn stuff. So much so that although Heathrow was open when we left Bahrain on Saturday, by the time we reached UK airspace six hours later, the wretched snow had closed it.

We diverted to Frankfurt, along with 70 other planes. We waited on the plane for four hours before being told Heathrow would not be re-opening that day. We waited another hour for a bus to come and take us to the terminal.

"Look, snow!" I told the girls as we disembarked. They didn't look enthused.

Once inside the terminal building, no-one seemed to know what to do with us. The Gulf air ground staff seemed to have vapourised. A nice lady from the airport was getting harassed. People were getting angry. The airport lady rang control and told them she was abandoning her post unless help arrived. The lucky passengers were finally steered through passport control and onto a bus to a hotel in Wiesbaden. Those without EU passports or visas were shown the transit lounge. I silently thanked the Lord for Ian's Belgian passport.

Now if you are going to have an enforced two-night stopover, Wiesbaden's not a bad place to have it. It has an attractive town square, a river and we were in a comfortable hotel. The only problem was no-one had any luggage. And it was Sunday and thanks to a strong "Keep Sunday Special" movement, nothing opens in Germany on a Sunday. So no toothbrushes, no clean undies and for many, no outdoor clothes. We were lucky. At least we each had a coat and closed shoes.

By day two, there was a real Dunkirk spirit in the hotel. GF003 passengers were the only guests and it was easy to identify people as they were all still wearing the same clothes. Friendships were forged in the hotel bar and rumours abounded of when Heathrow would reopen, whether Frankfurt would close, whether we would be home for Christmas.

Hotel staff tried to keep us amused by sending us en masse to the town's Christmas market. Off we trooped through the snow. The local gluhwein drinkers were seen giving their empty glasses a bemused glance as a group of veiled Bahraini women walked past, followed by a British girl with flip-flops and shower caps on her feet wrapped in a Crown Plaza duvet. You had to hand it to her for improvisation.

Monday morning brought good news. Heathrow was open. We landed. We cheered. We stopped. We couldn't get to the terminal because of the snow. The entertainment system was switched back on (never a good sign). We waited. An hour later, the plane shuffled forward and the terminal was in sight. We stopped. The Sri Lankan Airways plane that was due to move off our stick had developed a serious technical problem. We would have to wait some more. At least I could finish the movie.

Heathrow was chaos. London was worse. We passed the poor, shivering passengers waiting in the five-hour-long queue for the Eurostar and boarded a train to Peterborough. I have never been so glad to get there.

We went shopping today. The queues were horrendous. I've forgotten how crowded the UK is.

"It will be a long wait," I told Isabelle.

"That's OK, mummy," she said. "In the past few days I've got used to waiting."

By Royal invitation

I had a taste of Kate Middleton's future this week. On the morning her engagement to Prince William was announced, I was being presented to Her Highness Shaikha Sabika, first wife of King Hamad of Bahrain.

It's Eid Al Adha and a friend of mine, who is an Ambassador's wife, had been invited to attend the Shaikha's majlis (a special gathering) to offer good wishes. She's allowed to bring along fellow upstanding members of the community and so it was I found myself in the Ambassadorial Jag heading to the royal palace at Riffa.

As we swept up the long driveway lined on each side with gold coloured lampposts topped with a castle, my friend pointed out the Royal stables where a magnificent collection of Arabian horses is housed.

The palace itself is enormous. We were dropped at the door and entered a huge glass-roofed room with marble floors and chandeliers. Off to one side was another large room with sofas and low tables stretching its length and magnificent rugs in the middle. At the end of the room, under the Royal crest, stood the Shaikha, dressed in an exquisite jalabiya and with a long necklace of the largest diamonds, rubies and emeralds I've ever clapped eyes on. Without her head covering she looked younger than in her photos.

Protocol at such gatherings demands that we first waited in line to be presented to the Shaikha (curtsy was optional) and then had to be presented to all the other members of the Royal family at the female only gathering. We could then retire to one of the sofas, drink juice from a glass engraved with the Royal crest, scoff one of the cakes on offer, be doused with smoke from an incense burner and make polite conversation with other dignatories before once again lining up to bid farewell to the Shaikha and Royal family members.

Before leaving, we of course checked out the Royal loos (very posh) and were expected to spray ourselves with one of a huge selection of perfumes set out on tables next to the exit. The smell as we lined up for our limo alongside the other Ambassador's wives was quite over-powering.

Who knows, one day Kate Middleton may be invited to the Shaikha's majlis as part of the endless round of Royal engagements which will now become her life. And, fascinating though the experience was, I don't envy her one little bit.

Happy Halloween!

I hadn't realised it before, but Halloween is big business in the Middle East, which is strange given that it is a mix of Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals with a few European folk traditions thrown in. Yet the Bahrainis love it.

Our compound takes Halloween very seriously. The owners, a wealthy Bahraini family, even go so far as to deck out an entire section of their home as a haunted house. The "Ghost Gazette" was delivered to the door last week, with instructions for Halloween proceedings and for the first time ever, I felt obliged to invest in some cobwebs and spiders, costumes for the girls and bucketfuls of sweets and lollies. And our black cat, Enid, was an authentic live accessory on the night.

The shop where I went to purchase these Halloween goodies was packed with Bahrainis clutching everything from flashing ghoul lights to vampire fangs. They were queuing out of the door and two women in abayas were having a heated exchange about who had seen a witch's hat first.

At just before six this evening, the first Trick or Treaters arrived and it was a steady stream for the next couple of hours - at least 150 people, I reckon, including quite a lot of dodgy looking teenagers (why are they still interested?) and a fair few domestic staff clearly after the free choccies like everybody else.

Isabelle dressed as a dwarf and Olivia was a witch. She managed to chip her front tooth over the weekend, so could also sport a crooked smile. The tooth now has an infection and she may need an expensive dental procedure. The false teeth I bought her for her costume would have been a far cheaper witch's grin.

Happy Halloween! What did you get up to?

Where's the envelope?

On Monday I went to the local post office to send off a copy of a report to the UK. Handing over my brown A4 size envelope to the clerk I waited while he weighed the letter twice and then waited while he spent ages tearing stamps out of various books and assembling them in a pile on the counter. He ended by handing over what looked like postcards of the Royal family.

"These are the world's largest stamp" he told me proudly. I'm not sure if this is true, but the stamp was of gargantuan proportions. And I needed three of them.

I stared at the pile. Then I began sticking and when I'd finished, the envelope looked like this:

Nine stamps in all. Admittedly not as many as Manoj Kumar Mondal, who managed to use 3809 Indian postal stamps in March to break the world record for the maximum number of stamps on a parcel, but not bad for someone who wasn't really trying.

Country pursuits

Despite spending my teenage years in rural England, I never quite succumbed to its charms. I didn't ride, wouldn't shoot and couldn't see the point of traipsing for hours through muddy fields in green wellies and Barbour jacket with a faithful hound at my heels. I never returned from such outings with rosy cheeks and healthy glow, only with frizzy hair and freezing feet.

Once schooling was done, I headed for the Big Smoke - London - and have been a city dweller ever since. Yet once the children were born, I found myself looking forward to trips home to the countryside. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe simply that it is much easier to take a toddler for a walk across muddy furrows than down a city street.

Whatever the reason, this year not only saw us indulging in long walks and cycle rides, but also spectating at various local events, including the famous Burghley Horse Trials. Burghley House was home to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth I's most trusted advisor. It stands just at the back of my old school in Stamford - we used to do cross country runs through its park - and is quite magnificent.

Each year, Burghley hosts its famous horse trials - three days of dressage, cross country and show jumping (or for those of us not into all things equine, three days of champagne quaffing and great shopping) where riders and horses do things like this:

The good news is that we Brits are actually pretty good at horsey-things and rode seven out of the top 10 placed horses. The other good news is that green wellies and Barbours are most definitely out among the horsey set. It's all leather boots and fake fur gilets now. The stand selling these boots was doing a roaring trade:

But despite Burghley's fame and splendour, it was a smaller event at a little known stately home whose park backs onto my mum's garden, that I enjoyed the most. Owned by one of the richest women in Britain, whose family money hails in part from the Astor family, Grimsthorpe Castle was holding its annual family open day.

Apart from tours of the castle - Charles and Camilla stayed here not so long ago - there was a vintage car rally, a dog show and a truly excellent sheep dog demonstration.

I can't remember the name of the well-spoken farmer who was giving the demo, but he was fantastic. Using 5 dogs simultaneously, each with their own calls for left, right, stop and go (how he knew which dog was which, let alone remembered the designated calls, is beyond me) he herded a flock of geese into a U-shaped pen formed by children from the audience. Without raising his voice above a mere whisper. Yes, he conducted the whole demo with children AND animals and not one yell or expletive. Now, William Fox-Pitt may think the cross country course at Burghley was a challenge, but for truly awe-inspiring performances, the unnamed farmer got my vote.

Beware: kids and roos crossing!

I was sorting through our Australian holiday snaps this morning and had to share this photo, taken at a school crossing. I'm not sure how the lollipop lady copes with the kangaroos, but I'm sure she does her best...

Letter from Oz

Apologies for the long silence. We are in Brisbane and I have been preoccupied with the annual family catch-up. This week we've been on the beautiful North Stradbroke Island, one of several sand islands just off the Brisbane coast, with spectacular beaches, great surf, dolphins, whales and the odd shark.

A woman was taken by a shark here in recent years swimming with her dog at dusk in murky water. All the rules broken at once: don't swim at dusk (feeding time) with a dog (lots of splashing) in water where you can't see the bloody great shark coming at you. If attacked, Ian assures me, the thing to do is biff the blighter in the snout with all your might. Uncertain as to whether I would have the presence of mind to do anything other than wait to be swallowed, I avoid the surf and what lies beneath, to the amusement of my more gung-ho Aussie relatives.

Frankly, I think it's quite healthy to have a fear of all things deadly. As well as sharks, I am also terrified of encountering poisonous spiders and venomous snakes - and let's face it, Australia has more than its fair share of these nasties. When I lived here, I spent the first few weeks religiously shaking out my shoes each morning to dislodge any lurking scorpions. Ian nearly split his sides laughing at me when he found out and I suppose he was right to point out that any scorpions were unlikely to scale three stories of an inner city apartment building and end up in my work shoes. But you can never be too careful...

So it felt rather brave to suggest a bush walk the other day - five kilometres or so to the freshwater Blue Lake in the middle of the island. "We may even spot a koala or two," I told the girls, although my eyes were firmly on the ground searching for snakes. I should have been checking out the tree trunks as we rounded a corner and spotted this staring at us:

Now I know it's not deadly, but it had a steely prehistoric glare that was quite unnerving all the same. Undaunted, we trudged on through the bush, forded the odd stream

passed some very odd looking plants

until we reached the lake.

We found a spot by the shore to eat, our only companions two council workers and a group of overly-amorous German backpackers.

As we were tucking into our lunch and I was pondering why sarnies Downunder always have to include a giant slab of beetroot, the council workers came over shaking a large, half-full plastic bag.

"Youse eat prawns?" they inquired. "Goddem off a mate's boat in Amity this mornin'. We can't eat 'em all. Youse can 'ave 'em if you want."

Ian did want and as the workers ambled off, I reflected life must be pretty good for them on Straddie - fresh prawns for lunch, surfing after work before heading to their house with a sea-view (now worth squillions thanks to the influx of townies wanting second homes) and just time for a quick stubbie and some footie-watching with their mates before their Sheila tells them grub's up. No wonder Ian's looking wistful. It might be time to come home.

Dinner at the Embassy

We were invited to dinner last weekend, at the British Embassy no less; a smallish casual gathering with people the Ambassador and his wife would like to see more of - yikes!

I should explain that neither Ian nor I have previously socialised with the Ambassadorial couple. No, the reason for the invitation was Olivia, who is at school with the Ambassador's daughter and has been on a couple of play-dates at the Embassy and has obviously made a bit of an impression.

"What's an Ambassador?" asked Isabelle when I told her and Olivia of our new, improved social standing.

"Well" Olivia began, "K's dad does all the Queen's work in Bahrain when she can't be here. They live in the Queen's house and her dad makes all the Queen's important decisions for her. Oh, and they have cannons at their front door and royal toilets."

"Really? I must check those out!" I said.

"Yes" she continued, "and they are really lucky because they have one dog and two cats and they used to have two hamsters, but the cat ate one. It's OK though, because the hamster belonged to K and not the Queen so they don't have to tell her."

Well, thank goodness for that! We wouldn't have wanted K's dad ending up in the Tower before the weekend!

Local fashion

From spices to jewellery and shoes to singing camels, you can find just about anything in Bahrain's souks. I was after some buttons, so headed down to the area with all the tailors and clothing shops. I thought you might enjoy these photos of local fashions.

Motherhood: passing on knowledge

It's week 15 of The Gallery run by Tara over at Sticky Fingers and this week's theme is Motherhood.

I gave up lots of things when I became a mother: a career, sleep, going to the toilet unaccompanied. But I also discovered that one of the greatest joys of motherhood is passing on knowledge to your offspring and seeing them learn about and enjoy the same things you do.

I love sport, particularly ski-ing. So for this week's theme, here is a piccie of me passing on my ski-ing knowledge to Olivia (then aged 3).

No Sex in this City...or is there?

It looks like I'll have to wait until I'm back in the UK or Oz to catch up with the latest exploits of Carrie and friends. Warner Brothers have no plans to release the new Sex and the City movie in any country in the Middle East. So although Sex and the City 2 is supposedly set in Abu Dhabi (the producers were in fact denied permission to film in the Emirate and went to Morocco instead) no-one there will be able to watch it.

This is not surprising. Film censorship in the Gulf is very strict, with no kissing, sex scenes, nudity or bad language being allowed on screen. Films are cut as couples are about to embark on some amorous encounter and resume the next morning when they are fully dressed for breakfast. I took the girls to see the new Shrek film this weekend and the censors had even cut Shrek giving Fiona true love's kiss. Of course this can make some films very disjointed and, in the case of Sex and the City, presumably very short.

And while Bahrain is considered one of the more liberal countries in the Gulf, open displays of sexuality are frowned upon. Women are supposed to dress modestly and cover their heads. Most wear the traditional abaya (black floor-length cloak). Couples are rarely seen walking hand in hand or with their arms round each other and (thankfully) snogging in public is an absolute no-no. Things are significantly stricter across the water in Saudi where a court this week sentenced a man to four months in prison and 90 lashes for "engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers". He was caught on camera kissing and hugging a woman in a mall.

So I was extremely surprised to read this week that Bahrain has a sex shop, run by Khadija Ahmed, a Bahraini lady dressed in abaya and headscarf. Her "Khadija Fashion House" (use of the word sex in the shop name would be forbidden) sells a wide range of lingerie, creams to delay male orgasm and sex toys. Islamic scholars have said sex toys are legitimate if used by married couples, although Islam bans the replication of sensitive parts of the body so vibrators are forbidden. Vibration rings, however, are apparently fine. Mrs Ahmed claims her shop helps keep marriages on track and discourages extra-marital affairs.

Judging by the ensuing letters to the local paper, I was not the only person rather taken aback by the shop's existence. One reader using the pseudonym Loyal Bahraini raged about how such shops would corrupt the minds of the younger generation. "Marriage is not about lust" she wrote and "...these products are suitable for countries like Taiwan and Thailand, which have a large uneducated population" but not for Bahrain. Loyal Bahraini has clearly not heard of political correctness.

It seems this is not a view shared by all. Mrs Ahmed's shop has been so successful she is now considering opening another branch in Bahrain and outlets in Dubai and Lebanon.

Bretto's Bar, Athens

I've decided to participate in The Gallery again, run by Tara over at Sticky Fingers. This week's theme is Still Life.

The photo is of the interior of this great bar we found in Athens when we were there over Easter. A simple, inexpensive yet effective interior design scheme!

Driving Middle East style

Need an adrenalin rush? Want to take your life in your hands? Try doing the daily school run - in Bahrain.

Roads in the Middle East are the second most dangerous in the world - only Africa's are worse. This statistic comes as no surprise to those who live here. Venture onto Bahrain's roads on any given day and chances are you will see an accident, or at the very least several near misses brought about by unbelievably stupid driving manouevres.

When I applied for my Bahraini driving licence, I received a copy of the Bahraini Highway Code. The rules of the road are all in there, all up to international standards. The trouble is, no-one adheres to them and no-one enforces them.

So just so you are in the know should you ever come to the Middle East and be stupid enough to hire a car, here are my top ten tips for driving like a local:

1. Seatbelts: don't fasten them, they are a nuisance and will crease your clothes. And never, ever allow your child to wear one - much better to keep them amused while you are on the motorway by bounding around the car, leaping from front to back, draping themselves across the dashboard or sticking their heads out of the windows or sunshine roof.

2. Car seats: don't buy them; they are totally unnecessary. Put baby in the front on his mother's lap or if you are a lone driver, sit him on your lap.

3. Mobile phones: only use them while driving. Journeys can be so boring and a good chat with your buddies provides a welcome distraction from everything else going on around you.

4. Seat position: if you are male, under 25 and drive any sort of Toyota or Nissan, then your seat should be near to horizontal so that you struggle to see over the steering wheel (which you must only clasp with one hand as the other is holding either your phone or cigarette). For anyone else, the only rule is that you must position your seat so that you can't see in any of your mirrors (if you are even aware they are there and serve other purposes than applying lip gloss).

5. Indicators: don't use them. All that pushing the lever up and down - such a waste of energy. And anyway, you know where you are going.

6. Parking: if you must park in a designated parking area, then make sure you park at such an angle that you take up at least three spaces. Otherwise, use pavements, garage entrances, verges, the hard shoulder and, on Fridays, the lane of the dual carriageway closest to the mosque.

7. Motorway driving: overtake or undertake - both are fine as long as you are exceeding the speed limit and then cut in front of the person in the next lane close enough to take out their front wing. Oh, and tailgating is de rigueur.

8. Roundabouts: always make sure you are in the wrong lane to exit so that you have to suddenly and dramatically cut across cars in the other lanes to reach your destination - without indicating, of course: see rule 5 above.

9. Traffic lights: if you are at the front of the queue for a red light, make sure you edge forward into the junction ahead so that you get the best possible racing start when the lights change. As soon as the lights are green, any car behind the lead car should honk its horn madly and incessantly in the hope that all the cars in front will instantly vapourise. And most importantly, never forget the 10-second-rule: once the lights turn red again, cars must continue through them for at least 10 seconds or risk the car behind ramming into them.

10. Road markings and signs: on the whole, it is best to ignore these. Drive the wrong way up that one-way street if it's your quickest route home; always drive into that yellow box to make sure you block rush hour traffic from all other directions; and never ever take any notice of chevrons or double yellow lines.

Good luck! You'll need it.

All in a good cause - possibly

About a year ago, two employees of Ian's company were shot dead while working in Afganistan. Last weekend, the company organised a fund-raising rugby match at the Bahrain Rugby Club in their memory.

Now rugby is Ian's sport. He loves it and watches whenever he can. It doesn't seem to matter who is playing and in which league or competition or indeed which code - union or league, both will do. The only reason we pay a flogging fortune for a gazillion satellite channels of utter rubbish is so he can savour the two sports channels which show the rugby.

Many years ago he used to play too, starting off as a flanker when a young lad and progressing to hooker as the years and kilos took their toll. He last played about 15 years ago; a memorable match in which he dislocated his shoulder.

So it was with some trepidation that he signed up for the charity match squad, but peer pressure is a powerful thing and I have to admit I too was keen for him to have a go and enjoy a game again. I dutifully sourced boots and a mouthguard and was to be found in the stands among the keen rugby groupies last Thursday night.

He spent the first half on the bench, running through tactics and limbering up for his second half guest appearance. As the half time whistle blew, I was gasping for a drink. I trotted off to get two wines for my friend and me and upon returning discovered the second half was already in progress.

"Ian's on - quick!" yelled my friend. Sloshing wine as I went, I hotfooted it back to my seat and frantically surveyed the pitch for my rugby hero. Where was he?

"He's not the guy on the ground, is he?" I asked her nervously. We both peered. Yup, it was definitely him. Out cold.

"What happened?" I demanded.

"I've no idea, I wasn't watching," she admitted. Well, that made two of us.

The medic came on and he was hauled off the pitch by two of his team mates. I rushed to his side (as a good wife should).

"He was tackled from behind, knocked out and then had his head rammed into the ground by four guys jumping on top of him," summarised the medic. "Oh, and he's concussed. Listen!" she continued and to prove her diagnosis asked him, "What's your name, love?"

One of Ian's Indian colleagues, who was clearly baffled by why anyone would want to partake in such a dangerous sport and was very concerned for his boss's wellbeing yelled, "Ian! His name's Ian!"

Once said colleague had been muffled, the questions continued. We discovered Ian didn't know what had happened, had no idea what day it was and was showing alarming concern for the whereabouts of his mouthguard. I timed it: he asked for his mouthguard five times in as many minutes and there was no calming him. If only he would show such concern for me now and again.

So it was off to hospital for us and off to the bar for his team mates. As these things are in a rugby club bar, the accident was relived, analysed and exaggerated beyond belief. Ian is now a DHL rugby legend. But he's never being allowed to set foot on the pitch again.

The Gallery: Paint a picture of the world we live in

This week I've decided to take part for the first time in The Gallery, run by Tara Cain over at Sticky Fingers. This is how it works: following her prompt, I post a photo/photos and write about it/them. This week's prompt: Paint a picture of the world we live in.

Bahrainis love to shop. And although Bahrain has more than its fair share of glitzy modern shopping malls, the most authentic and fun shopping experience is to be had in the souks. There's no better place for buying spices and herbs for the evening kebab!

And then after shopping, they indulge in their second favourite hobby - tea and coffee drinking. There are many of these cafes dotted around the souks. Tea is flavoured with fresh mint and sugar and drunk in small glasses. Arabic coffee is thick and sweet and often flavoured with cardamom. And the gossip never stops.

Adam's not coming home

I last posted about Adam Jones in November. 10-year-old Adam attends the same Bahrain school as my daughters. Last October he went to Qatar with his British mother, Rebecca, to visit the family of his late Qatari father. His 77-year-old Qatari grandmother was supposedly ill and wanted to see him.

During the visit, Adam's mother was asked by his uncle to sign some legal papers, ostensibly concerning property in Qatar. In fact, the papers were nothing to do with land but instead allowed the grandmother to file for custody of Adam, which she duly did.

Rebecca has been in Qatar ever since, fighting for Adam's return. She feared that if she left Qatar, she may not have been allowed to return. Her second husband, Barrie, has remained in Bahrain taking care of their four-year-old daughter.

The Qatari court awarded full custody to the grandmother in November and Rebecca was denied visitation rights. She immediately appealed the decision and was awarded visitation rights at the end of November, allowing her to see Adam twice a week. He was distraught when he discovered the truth of what had been happening. Up until that time he had been told he was staying in Qatar because of the swine flu scare in Bahrain.

Rebecca has received threats from locals in Qatar and the Qatari uncle has supposedly used his influence with the police to intimidate members of the court and Rebecca's Qatari sponsors, without whom she has no standing to bring a court case.

During the appeal process, the court heard from Adam for the first time. He said he wanted to come home to Bahrain with his mother. His wishes have been denied. Judges have now dismissed Rebecca's appeal against the custody order. Adam will remain with his Qatari family and Rebecca's visitation rights will be entirely at their discretion. Rebecca and her family are devastated.

Throughout her ordeal, there has been strong support for Rebecca in the English-speaking Bahraini press and from the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, which claims that by not properly considering Adam's wishes and welfare Qatar has breached the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, to which it is a signatory.

There have also been letters to the local English-speaking paper from people who have experienced similar custody battles, whether as parents or as children who were forced to leave their mothers to live with their father or their father's family. Rebecca and Adam's case is not unusual, particularly given the large number of Gulf residents who are married to expatriates.

The Qatari courts apply Sharia law, which generally awards custody of male children over a certain age to the father or, if he is unable to be custodian, to another of his family members. In particular the court considers the parents' religion, where they live and to whom they are married. Rebecca remarried without the consent of her former husband's family, resides in Bahrain and sends Adam to an international school - along with many other Arab children - and all this will have counted against her. However, whatever the court's guidelines, it will often make exceptions, particularly in cases in which a parent is from an influential family or has powerful connections in Qatar, as seems to have been the case here.

Custody battles are always distressing. Sharia law appears to favour the father, certainly in the case of boys. Although they are now adopting a more balanced approach, where joint custody couldn't be agreed, UK courts traditionally awarded custody to the mother, often resulting in loss of contact with the father. However, in the UK, the best interests of the child are paramount when considering any custody issue and where a child is old enough to express his wishes, he should be listened to. To me, this is where the Qatari decision has fallen down. Adam wants to go home to his mother; he has expressly said so in court. He should have been heard.

Rebecca now intends returning to the UK to commence proceedings under the UK court system. I wish her luck.

Grecian adventure

Sorry for the lack of posts; we've been in Greece.

First stop was Athens. Ian had been before, though barely recognised the place from his previous trips - it was given a facelift before the 2004 Olympics and is now much less down-at-heel, with excellent shopping (the cheapest Zara in Europe apparently) and countless trendy restaurants (things have moved on since the days of the ubiquitous kebab and Greek salad).

The Acropolis was impressive, particularly at night when you couldn't see all the scaffolding. We didn't need a tour guide as Isabelle had the whole story of Athens down pat. She's a sucker for a good Greek myth.

And we watched the changing of the guard by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square. Olivia: "Mummy, why are the soldiers wearing dresses and tapping shoes?"

Answers on a postcard, please.

After Athens we spent some time on Hydra, one of the Saronic Islands off the coast of the

Peloponnese.

I knew it would be good when the blurb on the internet described it as the St Tropez of the Greek Islands. Unsurprisingly, Ian didn't recognise this one either from his days-of-yore bachelor trip round the Greek party isles.

Hydra is very definitely not a party island. It is sophisticated, stylish and picture-postcard pretty. The Greek Prime Minister spent his Easter here and while we didn't see him, we could see why: wisteria-covered cottages; grand mansions built by pirates with their ill-gotten gains; glorious coastal walks; crystal clear seas; and white-washed chapels at every turn.

And the best thing was the quiet. There are no cars or motorbikes on Hydra, except for 2 rubbish trucks by the harbour. Transport is either by donkey (pretty pricey at Euro 10 a pop for the shortest distance) or on foot.

It's amazing how much noise traffic makes. At night, the silence on Hydra was almost deafening. I haven't slept so well in years.

How to prune a palm tree

I came home the other day to be confronted by a strange rustling sound in the garden. Looking up, I saw the gardener up one of my palm trees with a machete and no form of safety equipment. And it's a long way up (or down, depending on how you look at it).

It turns out that date palms need pruning at this time of year, so the gardener shins his way up the trunk using only a small band of cloth attached to a circular chain for support. Once he reaches the top of the trunk, he slithers out of the cloth and climbs, totally unsupported onto the palm leaves, draws the machete out of his belt and begins hacking away.

Pruning over, he hurls the machete down to the ground (luckily I'd ushered the kids into the house), wriggles back into his "harness", poses for a quick photo and them shimmies back down the tree. Time taken: 10 minutes.

Now imagine the same scenario back in Europe: the health and safety issues; hydraulic platforms to transport the gardener; the required permits; not to mention the cost.

Some aspects of life in Bahrain are definitely simpler.

Photo meme

I have been tagged by both Julie at The Sardine Tin and Natural Mummy in a photo meme. My first, so I hope I get it right.

The instructions are:

1. Open the first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library

2. Scroll to the 10th photo

3. Post the photo and the story behind it

4. Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread.

So here's the photo. The quality isn't great as it was a photo taken with a video camera.

The date is 5 November 1999. The place, St Luc Hospital in Brussels. And after about 16 hours of labour, Isabelle was born. I'd forgotten to pack a hat for her (they insisted on newborns wearing them in Brussels) so she wore a sock on her head for the first couple of hours.

The day after she was born was the final of the Rugby World Cup and Ian came into the hospital to watch it with some friends and some champagne. Just what a breast-feeding new mother needs - alcohol she can't drink and friends she's too exhausted to converse with.

The Wallabies won. Ian was ecstatic. "Aussies rule the world again" ran the sporting headlines.

But my little Aussie and I slept through it all.

So now let me tag the following bloggers with this one:

London City Mum

Selma at Selma in the City

Fraught Mummy at Brits in Bosnia

Anne at The Pineapple Tart

Celeste at Coconut Radio

Vroom vroom

Kangaroos were spotted in the Bahrain desert last weekend and the locals loved them. The giant roos were fully kitted out with springs in their feet and Biggles helmets and goggles and were part of the entertainment at the Gulf Air Desert 400 V8 Supercars series.

This bloke was hanging round with his bird.

And these fellows were playing their latest tunes.

The girls each had henna tattoos on their arms. It's amazing to watch how quickly and skillfully the local ladies draw such incredibly intricate patterns.

Oh, and there were a few car races, of course. Petrol-head Aussie hubbie was in his element, but wishing, I think, for a son to enjoy it with rather than these two glum faces.

Some bloke called Jamie won every race. I was backing the car with the best name: Fair Dinkum. It came nearly last in each race before catching alight in the final laps of the last race and retiring. The car was a pretty colour though (before the fire, obviously).

And as if we haven't had enough motorsport this month, it's the Grand Prix on Sunday. Can life get any more exciting?