Saturday 5 January 2013

My sincere apologies

Dear friends, I am so sorry that I didn't wish you a happy new year. In actual fact I wanted to write a short synopsis of what happened to me, my family, the business, my friends and all the things that I came in contact with in 2012, just to put it on paper I mean so it doesn't get lost amidst the happenings of 2013. So, Happy New year everybody.

The year 2012 started with two historic events, my son's wedding and my daughter's engagement. God only knows how stressful life was at that time, but everything went so well and we had a great pre-engagement party followed by a fantastic Henna party, and of course our famous wedding party which was held in Crown Plaza which was a great finale to all the family gatherings that we had whilst in Bahrain. I haven't seen more happiness on all of our faces like what we felt during that time. I think all of us were giggling and laughing to the silliest joke, and even to a crawling ant. Our son went on his honey moon, and apparently they enjoyed it so much.  In May we heard that a grandchild is on the way.  Then in June we had a grand party for my daughter's proper engagement party at Grand Hayat.  Of course knowing me, I had to complicate things, as I also decided to have a henna party at home. We brought shiny material and covered the walls and the furniture, filled the place with sweets and candles. My sister was the DJ! and she prepared those lovely songs that moved everyone. Overall, it was a fun time.  just to relax from all the parties that we had in the first half of the year, I completed it with a trip to Turkey as a holiday (I haven't had a proper holiday in years, so this was a refreshing start for the second half of they year)

End of October was marked by the birth of our grand daughter, of course we had nights after nights debating the name; but my daughter in law was silent never saying what she was going to call her or telling us to stop looking as she already decided on a name.  The process of finding a name for the grand daughter was fun nevertheless, even though none of the names were used, we found meanings and heard names that we never heard of before.  So when the baby was born all of us wanted to know the name! guess how we found out? the grand mother had recorded a poem and got it sung by a singer! it was a brilliant idea, and the name was very pretty.  Anfal is the name by the way.

The year ended with the departure of our son to go and live in Bahrain, I had mixed feelings, I didn't know whether it is a good move or a bad move, is it good for him or bad for him, is he going to love it or not, is he going to have a better life than what we had in Dubai or not? at the end of the day, people have to make their own lives away from influences, so at the time, he must have made a good decision, time will prove me wrong as I am sure he will be able to have a fantastic future wherever he lives, as future, happiness and all other words associated with what a person wants in life are not really tied to a place, they are inside the mind of the person.

I was taking short holidays during my business trips too, so its not as boring as it may sound.  For example when I went to Qatar, I met with friends in the evenings and had dinners and lunches with them, and when I went to Oman I also enjoyed myself meeting people, attending their weddings and pre-wedding parties.  My trip to New Zealand was also great as my friend accompanied me and we had a lovely time.  We rented a car, drove from Christchurch to Dunedin, then we drove all around Dunedin, showed her the peninsula and all other nice places in that little town.  I also spent some time with friends in Auckland and had a marvelous time with my friend Val at her flat overlooking the city. when I went to Saudi I managed to have a short visit to Mecca and had a great religious day.  My friend Mona showed me her superb hospitality, and her daughters where gracious too, took me to a lovely restaurant and we even had Saudi champagne. In Turkey (during my business trip there) I went for dinner with my friend Marti, and when I went to London I spent sometime with my friend Khawla and her daughters. In Bahrain I had fun with my sisters, brothers and my other Bahraini friends.  Thus even during my work I did manage to sneak a tiny holiday so one mustn't complain really; life is great, and I have a good feeling about this year too.

One last thing I must tell you about is the number of books I managed to read even though I was swamped with work, weddings, trips, engagements, meetings, birth of granddaughter and publishing our book!  7 books, mainly novels and two non fiction.  I also saw at least 365 movies.

Okay, I must stop here and let you take a deep breath.  It must be tiring to read my news hah.

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