Wednesday 27 April 2011

30 and 1/4

Since turning 30 my life has transformed into a glamorous roller coaster of parties, travel and glamour that has left me no time to keep up with the little things in life like blogs and Facebook and the dishes...

Sadly, this is not actually true (apart from the bit about the dishes, but that's only because we have a dishwasher).  What is true is that work has become a lot more demanding, in both good and bad ways, and there is this thing happening in July - it's just a big party really - which is taking up all my time at home as well.  So when I'm not working at work or at home, I'm trying to find time to skype/email with family and friends, see friends here and keep up with my essential and extensive grooming regime (which is actually really important you guys!).

Not that I'm all "woe is me" (even though that is one of my favourite things to be).  It's been a lot of fun lately!  I've been doing some pretty cool stuff.

In February I had a trip back to London for a couple of reasons, firstly my sister very kindly provided me with my first go at being an Auntie by having the most beautiful little boy I have ever seen, ever (and I am not biased, not biased at. all.), which was most obliging of her and for which I'm very grateful.  I also had a bunch of stuff to organise for this party in July and so was able to sort cakes of the cup variety, speak to some official people and have a few things signed off about that, eat some truly amazing food and feel all smug about it, make a list of some ridiculously expensive forks and plates and buy a very important pair of shoes which I can't actually talk about but which are amazing!

I'm fairly sure there were a few other things that happened but it all got kind of lost in the mists of stuff-that-isn't-nearly-as-important when I held my nephew for the first time *sigh*

Then I came back to Abu Dhabi and some stuff happened here too!

We arranged some music, got some invitations made and sent them out (waiting for RSVPs is ridiculously nerve racking, why on earth do we do things this way around?!) and organised a fun thing or two for the party.

In between all that was work.  Which is ok - sometimes better, sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing and want to beg O to let me give up work and be a lady of leisure... until I remember how mind-numbingly boring it actually is being a lady of leisure and scrap that plan.  Work has allowed me to do a few very fun things that I probably wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

One of the fun things was a photography course (with these guys) which was awesome!  It was a two day course over a weekend that takes you from absolute beginner to knowing how to semi-manually operate a camera and really think about the kind of picture that you are taking.  It stops a digital SLR being an extra heavy and extra expensive point-and-shoot and means that you have way more control over how the final image looks.  I am so so so glad I did it and would recommend it to anyone.    I'd been wanting to do it for ages, but I didn't have a DSLR and wasn't planning on getting one in the near future either.  Then while I was in London in February my mum told me she had upgraded her DSLR for a newer, more expensive, betterer one and so was donating her old one to me!  She insisted she didn't want to sell it because it had too many nice memories, but equally didn't want it sitting around not being used so gave it to a worthy cause.  And so as soon as I got back I emailed Gulf Photo Plus and got myself signed up!  The main things we learned about were aperture and shutter speed and how to control those for effect.  We also learned about the evils of the F-word and the A-word (flash and auto, respectively).
Here are some of the better pictures that I took as a result of the course:




So that was fun and now I want to take my slightly more cumbersome camera with me everywhere!  Which I unfortunately can't do but I really must get out there before it gets too hot.  I think after the party in July I am going to take the second level so that I can learn even more!

There has been some eating out (and discovering the joy of chicken livers done Arabic styleee), much homesickness and feeling guilty for not being around while young ones are growing up and much excitement and anticipation about parties in July.  There has also been some heartache which was carried over with some horribly sad news from home - some kinds of bad/sad news have ways of making you feel very old and yet very young at exactly the same time.

And that pretty much sums up life since turning 30. 
I will try to be better at updating more regularly, I will I will I will I will I will I.....