03-11-16 Dubai Preowned Boat Show

Thursday 3rd November 2016

After a well-earned afternoon nap (master of mess and play, this kid) Kingsley is ready to get out of the apartment for an adventure. Why not take him to the Dubai Preowned Boat Show at one of my favourite hotel properties, Hyatt Dubai Creek? We take the metro, and walk up through leafy walkways passing golf buggies and promise each other to take a buggy on our way down.

I pretend to be a rich widow with young child while at the show. Many Ivans and Gregors are happy to welcome us into their exceptional vessels but I know better. So Kingsley and I stick to playing on the beanbags at the BBQ area on the little island, and we enjoy watching various boats come into harbour. The DJ plays great tunes and we dance by ourselves while deluded housewives of wealthy husbands take selfies; they are too busy looking at their own reflection to notice their bored husbands watch Kingsley and I dance. The ladies purse their lips in a bid to appear alluring; the husbands’ eyes look away.

However much I notice this failure of modern self-obsession right now, my heart is firmly with Kingsley as he scampers about avoiding a fall into the Creek lest I rouse on him (kid knows I will lose my temper if he falls in). Better idea to stick to dry land. Wanting to mount a runabout I give him a nod to proceed and his delight is palpable. He plays sailor with a local boy and my heart bursts that this kid is learning the value of being gentle and kind: Abdulla and Kingsley take turns ‘steering’.

Night falls early now that Autumn is well underway. As promised we hijack a buggy driver and ask he takes us to the main road. With pleasure, Sanjay says! Cool breeze dries Kingsley’s sweaty forehead on the fun and bumpy kilometer ride; the kid is active!  We offer Sanjay a packet of Doritos (am keen to get rid of it before Kingsley discovers they are edible) but Sanjay has his rogan josh warming, so he’ll pass. Home time now to Skype with Erroll and tell him about our day…but not that I pretended to be a wealthy widow at the Dubai Preowned Boat Show.

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