21 March 2009

A beautiful sunny spring day and to celebrate, my new car and I went for a "bonding session" and drove down to Brighton, Sussex. I had to get to know and understand her better (i.e. must put my foot on the brake to get her into drive, must have handbrake on to open up the roof etc) and by the end of the trip we had reached a good level of understanding!

15 March 2009: Mid life Crisis starts today!

I purchased a beautiful black Porsche Boxster today, complete with savannah leather interior and soft top. This is the first time in my life that I have had the spare cash to splash out on a fun car and boy am I going to enjoy it. I know what I'm doing next weekend!

14 March 2009: Reunion with old friends

Today Saboohi met my friends Dawn and Roger for the first time. We haven't been in touch for over 3 years now but we made contact again recently through facebook. I was surprised that they were still in the country as they had been hoping to emigrate to Canada (where Dawn is from) but their plans have been put on hold for now. Dawn's daughterJaime is settled now in Brighton and won't move back and her youngest Jess has been back to Canada but now wants to go to university in the UK. Dawn looks fab and has lost alot of weight and Roger is the same old Roger (thank goodness). We walked and ate our way around London, ending up at Patisserie Valerie in Covent Garden for a cake and coffee. A lovely day.

8 March 2009 - The Sha' Abbas Exhibition at The British Museum

For their Birthdays I bought Zora, Sam and Mumina tickets to see the latest Exhibition at The British Museum - The Remaking of Iran. It tells the story of Sha'Abbas who reigned in Iran in the late 1400's and is remembered for the way in which he opened up (and capitalised on) the trade routes between Iran and the West and East and positioned Iran as a major commercial trader in the world, with power and influence. Many of the artefacts on display have never been outside of Iran before and the exhibition was full of Iranians! Exhibits included priceless carpets, blue and white chinese pottery, silks and stunning paintings. We all had audio guides to help us to understand the history of each beautiful exhibit as well as valued input from Mumina, Saboohi and Zora too. It would be lovely to think that Saboohi could take me to Iran one day to see the beautiful city of Istafan with all its treasures...I would like that. We had lunch in a nearby restaurant "Denise's" and afternoon tea in a coffee shop just across from the museum's entrance. A lovely day.

7 March 2009 - Horse Riding in The New Forest

What a busy weekend! On Saturday Saboohi and I headed off down to the New Forest for a half day Western Style horse riding experience followed by a BBQ back at the Burley Villa Stables. The weather was surprising mild and dry and our horses were old hands at this trekking lark so it was a pleasant and enjoyable outing. My horse RIO was stubborn, lazy but reliable - a bit like her rider! She needed lots of encouragement to get her moving and they put me at the back of the ride so that she didn't hold everyone else up. By the time I got off her at the end of the trek I could hardly walk. Poor Saboohi and the rest of the riders stumbled around the courtyard too, suffering with stiff legs and knees, so I was in good company.

When we returned home that evening we picked up our friend Sandi Jenner and went to see the new film The Young Victoria at Sutton Empire. It tells the lesser known story of Princess Victoria before she became Queen and in the early stage of her reign. It was beautiful, romantic and inspiring and I loved it.

1 March 2009

We have been to see some great movies over the last few days; "Doubt" starring Meryl Streep which we saw at The Odean Leicester Square on Friday night and last night, after returning from a visit to Mum and Dad down in Bognor Regis, we went to see Clint Eastwood's latest film "Gran Torino". Both fabulous, moving and thought provoking films which Saboohi and I really enjoyed. Today however we used 2 complimentary tickets that I got from work, to go as see the "Who do you think you are? Live 2009" exhibition at Olympia in London. We sat in on 2 talks, one by Leslie Garratt who recounted her experiences on the show and her family story - which included a great grandfather who "accidently" poisoned his wife with carbolic acid! The whole story was very suspect but he got away with it! Leslie waqs very entertaining and told us many stories related to her family that hadn't be covered in the programme. We also sat in on a DNA workshop which explained how we are all descended from a single human being (or maybe 2) who would have lived in Africa millions of years ago. Also, the way our DNA is constructed means that we are most closely linked to our Great Grandparents (father's male line and Mother's female line). It was fascinating, if a little heavy at times for me. I purchased membership of "Findmypast.com" so that I can try and find out which member of my Grandmother Lydia's family went over to Australia. She told us about it just before she died but all we know is that it was her mother's sister. Let's see what I can find out.

24 February 2009

Our friend Louise Farrell from South Africa came round for Supper tonight and stayed overnight. Louise was one of our guides when we went on the Walking Women trip to South Africa last Summer and she has just arrived in London where she hopes to settle and work for awhile. It is not a good time to be job hunting in London as we entered a severe recession late last year and many people are being made redundant and the banks, whose outragious risk taking has got us into this economic mess, are relying on billions of pounds of tax payers money to keep them afloat. Louise specialises in Project Management in the finance sector so she may find it a struggle to find an opening initially. We had a great evening and hope to see much more of here now she is based over here.

22 February 2009

It was Mumina's birthday today and Saboohi hosted a lovely family party for her at our house in Sutton. All her children attended; Saboohi, Sabha, Saghi and Zora plus wives, husbands and partners, grandchildren and a few friends of the family. The Iranian cuisine was as delicious as ever and the air was filled with Farsi conversations and Iranian music. The picture shows Mumina (Pooran) with her grandchildren Chloe and Sophie.