A great blogsphere moment!

Last week I received a comment on one of my postings about Al Reef villas...

Hey Neil, love the blog. I am in the process of moving to Abu Dhabi and have been recommended Al Reef as a place to live. So, would be great to have a chat sometime to get your thoughts.

Best wishes,

Simon Warr (!!!)

Now to me, this was absolutely amazing! The reason was that this Mr Simon Warr was a good friend of mine all through secondary school (high school) and I haven't actually seen him in about 25 years! When Simon went off to university I started my working career and somehow we never managed to stay in touch. 

Simon (Left) and me (right) - during our school years

...and today...(who's been eating all the pies?!)

We did swap a few emails about 3-4 years ago before we moved out here. He was living in Greenwich, not too far from where we were, but didn't get chance to hook up before he again moved to Oxfordshire. So to receive this communication was brilliant. We have spent the last week in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (more on that to come), but having contacted Simon after his posting, I arranged to meet him today. It was so good to catch up with him and introduce him to Caz. He has taken up a post with one of the government companies and considering options for where to live - that is how he found my blog when he Googled "Al Reef". We were able to show him around and talk about life here in Abu Dhabi. Simon is pretty well travelled and has worked in a few other countries, so I am sure he will take it all in his stride. 

Wherever he and his family choose to live, it won't be far from us, so I am looking forward to re-establishing our friendship and not losing touch again.