Sand, glorious sand

Spent a very pleasant Friday on the beach this week. It might sound ridiculous, but there aren’t that many stretches of public beach in Dubai – most of the hotels have gobbled them up, or else they’re building onto them with various construction projects. The public beaches can be a bit of a bun fight, lots and lots of people (mainly men) and not really the place I feel comfortable prancing about in a bikini.

One great solution is to go to a beach club. These are attached to hotels; you pay a standard price for the day – anything from 20 to 30 quid. This allows you onto the beach for the whole day, and sometime includes a generous lunch. So on Friday we tripped off to this hotel. Divine to be on the beach – the water couldn’t have been any more azure and perfect, albeit a bit like a warm bath. The pool however, like our pool at home, is chilled. Yes, chilled! The boy and I adopted our usual positions – he with highbrow reading material: The Economist, Arabian Business, me with Ahlan! (our version of Hello) Grazia and OK!. Well, I may be on the other side of the world, but I still need to know how Britney is getting on!