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.