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Hello everybody and welcome to the ‘Krazy’ page of this week’s GulfWeekly. I’ve been having a fun time and compered a couple of great staff parties in recent days.
The first one was following a phone call from Rudolphe Melki, the Lebanese/French maestro from Azadea, to say that they where having a staff party at Zahla restaurant at the Gulf Hotel.
I went round to have a meeting with both Rudolphe and Aurora, the boss of human resources, for us to work out the schedule for the night’s events. And, I’ve got to say that he has the most delicious chocolates in his office. Instead of a ‘coffee meeting’ it was a ‘chocolate meeting’, and it was great.
On the actual night there were two Arabic singers, a band and a belly dancer as well as awards for ‘employees of the year’ and, of course, a raffle. It all added up to a good night had by all.
Then, three days later it was Arig’s turn for its staff party, which was held at the Sheraton Hotel. It was also very well organised. The night commenced with long service awards for the staff in the company for 25 years, then 20 years and 15 and 10. This was followed by some great games!
First up was the ‘banana game’ where I asked for three volunteers from the audience. About six bananas were placed in front of each and they were given just one minute to eat as many as they could. Phew! The winner ate three and half (I think he was part gorilla). Ha!
Next there was a talent show. Up first to sing was Olivia Vaz. She was followed by the extremely talented Fatima Al Banna who showcased a slide show presentation of her paintings. Then last, bouncing onto the dance floor was Valentina Pires who really entertained us with a dance from a Bollywood movie. She was all over the place and moved with fantastic enthusiasm and vigour. There were scorecards on each table and the resounding winner was Valentina.
There was no end to the entertainment that followed; a magician came on next - where does he get those pigeons from? The next game was fun too: the audience had to identify different staff members from cartoon sketches. There were some pretty funny answers.
Next was the ‘Magic box’; which was played by randomly picking a piece of paper from the box on which is written a question, dare or a statement. The person who picked it has to do it to win a prize. There where some challenging activities with people telling jokes, doing tongue-twisters and singing songs.
The Arig crowd are certainly very good fun.
On the home front, my three-year-old daughter Hannah has had a pretty great week. Christmas seems to have followed her into the New Year because she received some ‘new’ presents from our friends around Bahrain.
Word is out that Hannah is ‘horse krazy’ and Annie and George Middleton invited us over to give some of the toys that their girls no longer play with (in particular a sizable ‘my little pony’ collection). Their daughter Andrea played with and entertained Hannah for hours.
George also had a new ‘toy’; a Nintendo brain training gizmo that we grown ups all grappled with and had great fun with for ages.
I’m a bit worried though, because my ‘brain age’ started off in the eighties and only came down with practise to the sixties.
Wendy my wife did much better (which was very annoying) and George also did very well and is addicted to doing his daily ‘exercises’.
Two days later Hannah hit the jackpot again, when Bryson and Sara Wood invited us to their lovely home. Actually we kind of invited ourselves, but that’s by the by.
Their daughters Izzie and Hannah gave our little Hannah lots of stuff that they had grown out of; including some great costumes, a horse-riding helmet (that fits perfectly), some boots that will fit pretty soon and her first pair of jodhpurs. And, yet another toy horse, which brings her collection of horses, ponies, donkeys, zebras and unicorns to 36, I think.
We had a wonderful afternoon of fun together with the kids putting on plays for us, and a walk to a great playground where the kids just played and played.
What’s really lovely too, is that when we got home Hannah thought really hard about how kind and generous all her new friends were and the next day after school she decided to go through her teddy bear collection to give some away.
So there’s hope that she won’t develop my hoarding habits. She’s even decided to make thank you cards for everybody (well, it was her mum’s idea, but she took to it pretty quickly). Aren’t the ‘little’ people great!
All my love
Until next week,
Krazy Kevin
