The Giants of Golf

After being 'partied out' this weekend (two chidren's birthday parties--one each day), we spent last night enjoying some adult-time with our friends, Shariza and Arul.

After WE (the ROYAL 'we) broke bread (literally--I hit the jackpot when I arrived at Safa just as their buns were coming out of the oven), and picked all the meat off the wings of our feathered friends that we could, we ended our meal with some tea and apple crisp.

Arul had his first experience with "Lady Grey Tea", which he enjoyed for it's light bergamot taste, complemented by citrus notes.  My choice of teas--a choice I made out of sheer laziness, as I have not made the effort to go upstairs and replenish my Earl Grey supplies, spawned an entire discussion about British nobility and titles.  With a brief bit of research on wiki (and yes--we've paid our five dollars this year, have you?), Arul decided that Twinings of London should repackage this tea as "Countess Grey Tea".  

However, this just shows how a little bit of information can be a dangerous thing.  

This morning, I woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and decided to investigate the matter a little more.  I am relieved to discover that my friends at ToL are indeed CORRECT in their naming of one of my favourite teas:

"An earl has the title Earl of [X] when the title originates from a placename, or Earl [X] when the title comes from a surname. In either case, he is referred to as Lord [X], and his wife as Lady [X]. A countess who holds an earldom in her own right also uses Lady [X], but her husband does not have a title (unless he has one in his own right)." 

Thank-you to Wikipedia (seriously--five dollars...cheaper than a set of encyclopedias and you don't even need to clear shelf space!).  Now I can relax and enjoy that cup of Lady Grey so much more, knowing that they have given the correct title to their tea bags.  

Phinn's 'war wound' from his trip to the vet

This morning, after my trip to the vet for Phinn (whose hair loss may indeed be caused by an underactive thyroid gland--I will just need to spend 500 aed MORE to be sure about this...), we (Malou and I) packed up the kids, called a silver cab, and spent some time at the Abu Dhabi golf club, where they are hosting the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.  I have no love of golf, but must confess I have really enjoyed the marketing campaign for this tournament:  "The Giants of Golf...".  

A went with Peter on Friday, and returned home QUITE disappointed.  There were NO giants there--all the people (including the one we call 'Tiger') were normal sized.  Apparently, she was also expecting the "Tiger" to be orange...

So today, we had a much more happier result.  Not only did she come away with a butterfly on her cheek, but we also scored our OWN photo.