Just Another Birthday in the Sunshine...

Another weekend, another trip to the beach…..we’ve been a little at a loss since Shoreside closed down – and with the sad news that it isn’t re-opening, we’ve had to look further afield for our beach fix.  As it was M’s birthday weekend, we allowed her to choose the venue, and she plumped for the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.  It’s a stalwart of the Dubai hotel scene, with a fabulous rooftop bar, Uptown, and of course the amazing 360.  The latter is a circular bar, which you reach via a narrow causeway…and it’s in the middle of the ocean.  Gorgeous.  It’s also right next to the Burj Al Arab – priceless location.

In typical Dubai beach style, we were rocking out a variety of fabulous bikinis…purple, white, frilled and my favorite (mine) silver.  When I say silver I mean tinfoil-like.  Only in Dubai would my hands have ever lingered on such an item, least still, grabbed at hungrily and charged to the cash register with.  It’s so wrong it’s right is all I’m going to say.  

We duly collapsed onto the ridiculously comfy loungers, handed round celebrity trash magazines, and got on with the business of tanning and talking boys fashion and make-up.  All interspersed with free ice lollies, water misting and a regular supply of iced, lemon scented towels.  Occasionally a helicopter came into land on the heli-pad of the Burj.  Spoilt, us?

The evening saw us head down to the marina and to Frankie Dettori’s restaurant.  I may have blogged about this before – it’s one of my favourite Dubai eateries, and not just because I love Italian food.  It has a great piano bar, which leads to a great atmosphere.  There’s usually a fair few Italians in there which I think is always a sign of a restaurant that’s cracked the formula.  We troughed, we troughed some more, we slurped wine, all with lashings of gossip and boys fashion make-up chat.  There’s a theme here! 

It’s always hard to come up with birthday celebrations, as it really does seem like every weekend in Dubai is a birthday, such is the fun that we have.  This was a good weekend.