Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Hello everybody. So how was your weekend? Let me tell you about mine because it was a complete comedy of errors…
It began sometime last week; when I finally decided to use the ‘Gulf Hotel home catering voucher for eight people’, that I’d won many months ago. (When I’d come third in a golf competition).
At the time I thought “Great, our dinner table only seats four”. But someone suggested that I ask to change it, and dine out at the Gulf Hotel.
“What a good idea” I decided. My wife Wendy and I don’t get out as much as we did BH (Before Hannah – our daughter). Not counting when I’m working that is. So the prospect of some civilised fine dining was very appealing.
Anyway, I asked Stan, Kath and their friends Matt and Gemma (who are over from Bristol, UK) to join us, together with our friends Maree and Paul. Then I made a booking at ‘Fusions’ for Thursday night.
We were all set for a great night out! Then, Thursday morning Wendy got a call from Maree; her daughter Georgie had an ear infection, so they couldn’t exactly go out and leave her with a babysitter.
“These things happen”, I thought, but what to do? So I asked my famous newsreader friend Nadia Swan if she and her husband David fancied coming along.
“Yes, that would be good,” was the reply. But later on I got a call from David; he’d been called to work at the last moment …
So…we were down to six for dinner. But that should be all right, shouldn’t it?
Wendy and I got ready, kissed Hannah goodnight and drove to the hotel, where we proceeded to Fusions and were met by the Maitre’d who showed us to a beautifully laid table resplendent with eight chairs.
I apologised and explained that “you can take two away as we’ve had a couple of cancellations”.
Then Wendy and I sat down, took in the view and waited for our four friends to arrive.
Ten minutes later Stan and Matt entered.
I looked about and asked: “Where are the wives?” Stan replied: “We’d just arrived when we got a phone call from our babysitter. The children wouldn’t go to bed without their mums and were working themselves into a state!”
So the ladies had stayed in the taxi and went straight home to sort it out and hoped (no chance) to come back when the kids were asleep.
The end result was we were down to a company of four. Talk about musical chairs without the music!
Anyway, we still had a beautiful meal and a lovely time. Afterwards, Stan suggested we check out the latest nightspot attaraction - ‘Typhoon’. It was lively and a fab Columbian band were playing.
When it got to about 12.30 we started to feel guilty about having so much fun when everybody else was having work and ‘kiddy’ problems.
Stan had a Taxi prebooked and lives just around the corner from us, so we jumped in too and left my Tele-Gulf car in the car park to be collected later.
The next day we took it easy.
We saw Stan and Co again for a relaxing afternoon by the pool followed by a great Indian take-away. It’s a funny world though… Gemma, who’d only been in Bahrain a few days got stung by a bee.
In all my years in Bahrain I’ve never been stung by a bee, even though we have a small ‘colony’ buzzing about just outside our front door (see photo). But then, I’ve never sat down on a bee, so that might explain it.
In case you’re wondering; Yes, Gemma was wearing bathers. So now we know that bees can sting you through your clothes, especially if you plonk yourself down on one!
Our ‘buggy’ misadventures continued.
You won’t believe this, but a big beautiful dragonfly flew straight into Matt’s armpit and nearly got stuck in the hair. What it was thinking I have no idea. My wife has always said that men should shave their armpits, and now I agree.
I mean, can you even imagine trying to free a dragonfly from a sweaty, smelly armpit? Anyway it was ‘released’ and landed in the pool. It was rescued again and became the centre of attention for five small children.
Poor thing was lucky to survive.
Despite all this excitement we were so relaxed, I forgot to pick up my car.
So we decided to go the following day instead…
But, when I got into the drivers seat and switched on the engine. It was dead; I’d left my headlights on. DOH!
I telephoned for roadside assistance and an hour later a friendly chap in a pick-up duly arrived.
While waiting, we had a yummy breakfast at Rik’s Country Kitchen. Thanks Romy, Nancy and Charle for looking after us and we hope you enjoyed the picture that Hannah drew for you. What a strange, eventful and rather ‘funny’ few days.
Keep Happy
– Krazy Kevin
