July-August Kuwait 2018

August 7, and the dust has settled and it's heating up. We've survived our first Ramadan and first part of Arabic summer. So far, so good!

Arts and Crafts Exhibition

 Jeroen attended a meeting recently where he found these beaut old Kuwait photo's. He was intrigued with this pic where people are looking at fossils and the title is arts and crafts exhibition.
And, Jeroen's been chatting with The Pope?!

One day I discovered quite a few messages from The Pope trying to connect with Jeroen. It didn't happen.

One man, one car, one sign and one BIG desert

 Before we moved here, Jeroen considered the idea of visiting the oil fields in the heat of summer to be a 'con' on our should-we-move-there list.

One summer's day in Kuwait desert

We took a little mini-break to The Palms Resort overnight for dinner and brekky.

Entrance at The Palms Hotel

Coffee anyone?

Everything's shiny

Glamorous Palms Wedding Planner



View from The Palms

A wander around the gardens

Jelle and Tinka cooking up pasta in Hengelo

 As always, it's wonderful to hear from family in Holland and NZ. Here are our niece and nephew, cooking for their family. And below, cooking creations by Liam and Shani at home. When Liam was little he used to dress up as chef and call himself Luigi, serving us all kinds of delicacies....at one stage we had hot-chocolates with bonus every kind of hot chocolate condiment he could find!

Luigi has returned!

 

Love these birds....Tui in van Dijk Junior's backyard...photo by Liam

One day last week I met with several women at the home of an English woman who's lived here for over 40 years. Joy married a Kuwaiti, brought her children up and does voluntary work. This includes looking after pets no-one wants.



This lucky fella is off to his for-ever home in Germany next month

This little girl was being tossed and kicked from child to child before Joy rescued her

More hippos! These ones are mahogany

Cheryl, Lori and Cathy- what a spread of food

Kuwaiti home welcome complete with stuffed penguins, teddys and cats

Here's another rescue chap, off to live in USA. My friend Alex and her husband helped out one Saturday to get 15 dogs and 4 cats ready to board a flight to America. Animal welfare is not on the agenda of priority here. Sadly thousands of animals are tortured, starved, or poisoned leaving them dead or severely disabled.

Take Me!

 We all know Charlie is the luckiest cat in the world. Here's what he's been up to this week.



Charlie and The Box



Charlie and They Gym Bag - no gym today unless you're taking me with you

Charlie and The Book - no reading today

Charlie and The Melon Box

No tail-pulling

 A couple of weeks ago, Alex and I visited the coolest 2nd hand English bookshop. Complete with resident bird and cat, we found a welcome little underground sanctuary.

Frosty receiving some love

Alex and bird-friend

This inquisitive bird flies immediately over to sit on top of the phone that anyone whips out to snap his photo.
Here's the view from our lounge window now.  The guys have returned to put scaffolding up again and looks like they're set to plaster the walls. Work begins before 4 here.

A view of concrete

 Our wonderful friends, The Hatch's have been travelling the world. For 3 months they removed the children from school and trekked around Europe, USA and Canada capturing many family OE adventures together on their Finding Penguins blog. What a treat to wake each day to read their stories.

Happy 40th Jen!

Here, they reunited with our mutual NZ friends in England, The Moesbauer family.

A long time reunion

See, Hear, speak...

Out and about in Kuwait. I love scanning the supermarket aisles. 

Sweet treats - Kuwaitis love their sugar

 Prevalence of diabetes in Kuwait account for over 15% of the adult population and ranks 7th highest in the world. Awareness is slow here where foot amputations are not uncommon.
And some more sugar coming!



Rose-heads

Hands Off MY chocolate!

Dates galore - it's perfectly acceptable to stand and test all the varieties

Our local Co-op in tatters as, during daylight trading hours, the store is being re-configured

900 fils! That's less than $5 NZ

I didn't visit antique shop however seems its crammed with all and sundry

 As many expats (particularly wives and children) have gone for the summer a small group of Summer Gals explores the city each week. I hope to join in more next year.

 

 

Thatcher Complex

 With our lease up on this apartment soon we thought to look around at other available properties. This one in Mahboula down south has a beaut pool and gym and is near some lovely friends. And I discovered it is named in honour of past PM Margaret Thatcher.

Charlie and The Medications

Charlie and The Mouse

Charlie and The Pano - time to sew, Mum?

Charlie and The Biscuit Box! Little thief whipped off with, thankfully, a sealed biscuit.

Mahboula coffee shop

 

 If you enjoy coffee, this little café will hit the spot. Oromo next to PetZone Mahboula is Africa themed and has very friendly staff. I am not a coffee drinker but it smelled good!



Coffee Overload

It's really nice to remain in touch with a few friends from Angola who have also moved on. Sarah in Poland and I connect on Whatsapp - this week she thought she'd share photo's of her wine recently purchased and no doubt sampled already.



Flowers for Dad - thanks Sarah

Another cat!

 A new friend, Venetia, regularly sends me photo's or video's of cats she encounters.
Venetia is an artist in the UK who is about to begin adult tutoring here in Kuwait. May just have to sign up for some drawing. Here's her website - click to check out her work.
And to sign off for this post, here's Charlie up to no good, stalking me in the kitchen.

Charlie and The Pot Plant