Sing Joy Spring

Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the flowers iz.
The boid is on the wing
Absoid!
Of course the wing is on the boid.
~ Anon

Spring has arrived in Berlin during our final week in the German capital with today touching 20degC which is May weather!

Birds are feeding in the garden - big pigeons and bluejays, smaller thrushes, blackbirds and nightingales; tiny sparrows, tits, finches and robins.

The flowers are out too - our first daffodil burst into bloom.


We thought that it was terrific until we saw Mise's beautiful field of daffies just down the road from his home in Ireland!


The perfume coming from these hyacinths is heavenly


If you want to see beautiful plum and apricot blooms, called ume in Japanese, head over to Pandabonium's blog to see Mito City's gorgeous Kairakuen Park in flower, as well as some home-grown beauties.

Our squirrels haven't hibernated at all this winter. They've been regularly coming to our back door to collect walnuts, and launching ground attacks on the bluejay bomber squadron over the peanuts which we throw out.

We have had 3 regulars - Ginger, Van Hazel and Scratchy - 3 squirrels with 3 very different personalities and one common thought - hungry, must have nuts!

Scratchy

We're back to Dubai at the end of the week. Until then we have a multitude of tasks to do which includes packing up the belongings that we're keeping and transporting them to J's parents (5 hours away) for safe-keeping, getting haircuts (so much cheaper here than in Dubai!), working on the new company set-up and blogging if we can!

Our Local Expat Hero!

Gulf News is running a worthy campaign to recognise Everyday Heroes - people in the UAE who work behind the scenes contributing their time, experience and value to help others and be of positive influence in the community.

Among those recognised is Jayne Winstanley - our very own Jayne with a Why - blogger and raconteur of wit, humour and bloody good jokes, interspersed with tales of Grandma and life in the varied, numerous countries in which she has lived.

For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting her, Jayne is one blogger whose blog truly reflects her personality - straight-up, humorous, intelligent, and damn good value!

She has often written in her blog of her times spent as a volunteer at a centre caring for mentally and physically handicapped people in Abu Dhabi, and it's for this remarkable work that she is being honoured.

Anyone who has worked with the physically and mentally impaired will understand what fortitude this takes, and how you have to be so mentally strong to cope with the joy, frustration, sadness, happiness and the multitude of other emotions that caring for these people can invoke in their ablebodied caregivers. Jayne has just the right balance of compassion and humour to do it.

CONGRATULATIONS Jayne, kudos to Mike for nominating you, and well done to Gulf News for recognising outstanding UAE citizens working in the background to make a difference.

GN Article on Jayne
GN Article on Everyday Heroes
Nominate people for Everyday Heroes

International Women's Day

Another quick post! I was reminded this morning that today is International Women's Day.

A GLOBAL DAY OF CELEBRATION
Celebrated on 8 March, International Women's Day (IWD) is the global day connecting all women around the world and inspiring them to achieve their full potential. IWD celebrates the collective power of women past, present and future.

You can find out more about this on the IWD website.

Here's a round-up of all the blogs on our blogroll who have blogged about IWD:

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira on Al-Baal Cafe

Aaron on An Englishman in Dubai

Wendy on Babasiga

Destitute Rebel on Pakistani Abysmal Ramblings

Louis on The Journey of Life

Here's to the women celebrating this day, and to the men who are celebrating your women on this day!

What Dubai will look like

Hi Gang!

We're still busy, but I thought that I'd drop in to leave you with this image of what Dubai will look like when it's finished.

Click on the image to enlarge it in your browser

Just kidding, but it's almost ironically true! Isn't it brilliant art?

Found it here with a whole lot of other fantastic images. I wish I knew who the artist was so that I could place a proper credit.

We had to again activate the anti-spam letter verification on the comments as the amount of spam was getting ridiculous. Sorry for the extra step when commenting, but I think that it's better than the option of me approving the comments before they appear. It means that any conversations in the comment section can flow, so BuJ and CG can continue their little battles of words and digs!